Broken
by Crystal RoseWing
Summary: Just when Father thinks his life can't get any worse it does; when he finds out he has an biological child that he's now stuck with! But the bigger question is how is SectorV going to handle either having a new friend or enemy? Bad summary, story better..
1. Loss and Gain

**Disclaimer: Well this is my first Codename Kids Next Door fanfic ever. The idea had been bouncing around in my skull for several months and I finally just now decided to write it. Just know I'm really trying to keep Father in character, but if I'm not please tell me and I'll try to fix it! Also I do hope you all enjoy this story! As to be expected I own nothing except for the plotbunny, and any and all additional characters.**

**Please don't forget to read and review! ^_^**

**Broken **

_**Chapter 1 **_

_**Loss and Gain**_

_This day could not possibly get any worse…_

That was all that Father could think as he looked upon the towering building that currently loomed over him… this was one of those extremely rare days that he had absolutely no intent of bothering the Kids Next Door. He had his own problems to deal with today… right now he was currently dealing with the worst migraine he'd ever had, his insides were trembling so much that he was visibly shaking, and if one was to look deep into his amber gold eyes one would notice that they were actually quite bloodshot... But this is all to be expected; after all…

…_how would any individual react to getting a phone call, saying their father just passed away?…_

It had finally happened; the old man was gone… out of Fathers life forever. But that in itself was not what was bothering Father. Well not entirely… it was actually a combination of two things that had gotten him to this particularly worked up state. The first and foremost being his father's death… but it didn't bother him quite in the way that one would normally expect… what bothered him was what he was feeling because of this tragedy.

…_he felt absolutely nothing…_

Now that was really eating at him. All his life he had strived desperately to gain his father's approval; he'd done everything the old man had wanted! He had been an obedient and good son! He'd sacrificed his own childhood and happiness searching for that bitter old man's approval and he never even got so much as a smile in return. His father had always loved his older brother so much more, even when Monty had rose up against him! Still… Grandfather would have forgiven his elder son in a heartbeat if he'd asked for it. While Father knew that if he had tried that, there would not have been such a forgiveness. He would have been disowned immediately and his father would have never even so much as given him a second thought. It made Fathers blood boil the more he thought about it. Even nowadays he'd never stopped trying to get his father's approval… his love… hell he was the one who paid for Grandfather's retirement home and all of his medical bills! His idiot brother couldn't even begin to scrape the surface of what he'd given to their father.

And yet it was for these reasons that he was so confused about what he was feeling. He had an idea about what it was he _**should**_ be feeling… Sad, unhappy, maybe even shed a tear or two? …or maybe he would feel some sort of anger? Heaven forbid he'd gotten angrier for much less…

…_or would he have felt some kind of relief? _

Relief that the man who had made his childhood a living hell and ultimately turned him into the miserable adult he had become was finally gone? …He didn't feel that either, the fact that he felt nothing at all troubled him; even if he did not know why. When he'd received that phone call from his brother he had felt nothing… he just got physically sick for a moment or so…

Now that was only half of Fathers current problem… the other problem was waiting for him inside of the rather intimidating building he was now entering. And this problem had a name… Ezekiel Harth…

One of the very few adults that Father absolutely _loathed… _Ezekiel Harth was an older man, only a few years younger than his own father. In fact, old man Ezekiel was one of Grandfather's old business acquaintances… and he was every bit as mean and nasty as Grandfather was. The only real difference between the two was that Ezekiel didn't have any powers that he could use to torment others... While Grandfather had never been particularly fond of the man; he had greatly respected him… that alone should state what kind of man Harth was. It was strange, how on the same day of his father's death he had received a phone call from old man Ezekiel telling him to come see him at his office… Not '_requesting'_ but '_telling'_ and needless to say it took a whole lot of nerve to even so much as dare to order Father around.

And yet here he was; walking towards the office of one of the people he hated the most. Not mourning the loss of his father, nor worrying about the funeral arrangements… He was leaving that all up to Monty. Now that the old man was finally dead so he could care less about what happened to his body. He was no longer the dutiful, sacrificing son… And he was also dead set against going to whatever funeral service that was going to be held, there was no love at all in his heart… There was no remorse… There was no feeling… who would've thought that a man with such a fiery powers had a soul that was covered in a thick sheet of ice?

Tearing his thoughts away from the events that had taken place earlier in the day Father began to wonder just what in the world that old man Ezekiel wanted. It was no secret that Ezekiel had a particular disliking for him… And it was this particular reason that Father had _really_ come when the old sourpuss had called… If he disliked Father as much as Father disliked him, it must be something pretty important that the old cretin wanted to talk about. Whatever it was, he hoped this meeting would go nice and quick… he had a date with a bottle of Scotch and a box of Rocky Road ice cream this evening… the perfect way for him to deal with this mess. Normally Father very rarely drank… but tonight was going to be an exception… and Rocky Road was his favorite comfort food… of course there was another reason that Father hoped this meeting would go quickly. It was due to the fact that he really did not want to run into a certain someone who he hadn't seen in a very, very long time…

_And that someone was named Mariah…_

To put it quite frankly, she used to be the only friend he'd ever had. Mariah was Ezekiel's only child, his precious only daughter… She had long mocha brown hair that had gone down to the center of her back, her skin had been pale as ivory, and her eyes were like perfectly cut sapphires. And ironically enough she was the total opposite of her father; she was a sweet kind child and grew up to be a beautiful and loving woman. Father had first met when her when was 12 years old; when Harth had introduced her to Monty, in hopes of perhaps having Monty has his son-in-law one day... Yes everybody loved Monty… But while friendly with Monty, she proceeded to become very close to the much more timid Benedict… Much to the dismay of her father… Prior to meeting Mariah, no one had ever tried to be friendly to Benedict; in fact most people acted like he simply didn't exist… He had been a cowardly boy who had not aided his heroic brother in the assault against his tyrannical father… and in the end when his brother was victorious; it led to him being permanently alienated him from all kids his age. Except for Mariah… She was his only human companion for years. The only person he could talk to, the only person who ever bothered to listen to him. They remained friends all throughout their teenage years and even when they became adults.

_Although Mariah had the patience of a saint, even she had her limit…_

Over the long years of their friendship, Benedict Uno's heart grew darker and colder. With each passing day, he would find something else that he could become angry at for almost no apparent reason… With each passing year his hatred for children grew stronger and stronger. His once pale blue eyes turned golden with anger and malice and he began showing signs that he had inherited his father's demonic fire ability's and other such unnatural powers.

Again Mariah was the complete opposite; she loved kids and she very rarely got angry… And she had tried her best to stop the hatred that had begun to consume Benedict's life. But that turned out to be impossible… So as a compromise they just simply agreed to disagree… And it worked for a time. Benedict and Mariah were together for several more years… By that time he had long since fallen in love with his best friend… And finally one day he told Mariah that he loved her and asked her to marry him.

_That was when things really went awry…_

She had thought about it, and while she said that she loved him too… She wanted a family. She wanted to have children of her own; and she wanted him to know what love felt like, real love. Love that a real family could give to him. But unfortunately in this particular case he refused to have children and would not budge on his decision. He hated kids and he did not want any snot nose little brats getting between him and Mariah… He told her that, and he would not change his mind no matter how much she tried to talk him into it.

_And that was when she left._

She kissed him and bid him farewell… Saying that if he ever changed his mind that she'd be waiting. And with that she was gone out of Fathers life forever…

Whatever light there had been left inside of Father's soul died that day. That was the day the silhouette first covered his entire bony frame… Why would any sane adult actually want some snot nosed little brats? It tore his black heart apart to know that his best and only friend would choose having some whiny kids over him. He couldn't figure it out…

_That had been almost 10 years ago… _

Ten long years… and he'd changed a lot over those years. During his seemingly never-ending war with the Kids Next Door, a thought had occurred to him… a thought that eventually turned into a very cold, cruel plot… and to make a very long story short the Delightful Children were the result of this plot. He had to admit, they were ideal children. Perfect in every way… annoying, but perfect… He forced himself to forget about his old friend, she became nothing more than a distant memory to him… and that was the way he hoped she would remain…

But about six months ago Father had gotten the surprise of his life. Mariah called him; right out of the blue! In what felt like an avalanche of emotions, all of the memories he had long buried seemed to come to the surface… He remembered that day; he'd been preparing another of his brilliant schemes to destroy those miserable little Kids Next Door; but when he got that phone call he immediately called it off. Much to the surprise and horror of his Delightful Children… and honestly, much to the surprise of himself as well… He'd spent the rest of that day just catching up with his old friend… they'd even agreed to meet up and have dinner in a few days. Mariah had said that she had something extra important that they needed to talk about. Well over the following days Father had spent virtually all of his time personally making sure that his mansion was spotless. On the day Mariah was actually to come over, he even cooked a lavish dinner for two in his excitement. But the planned evening ultimately ended in complete disaster…

_Because Mariah never showed up…_

Now that hurt… that hurt bad… and it was humiliating to boot. And as far as Father was concerned this was a sure sign that his old friend was no longer a friend at all, but a traitor. Why else would she get his hopes up so high only to have them come tumbling down as though they were hit with a sledgehammer? He even called her back asking if there was some reason that she couldn't make it… he expected her to call back, hell he _prayed_ that she'd call back, but she never did…

So now here he was just entering the waiting room to old man Ezekiel's office. A large spacious, windowless, room decorated only with a few dying plants, and some disturbingly dark artwork hung upon the walls. There were also some uncomfortable looking chairs and a small coffee table with some old boring magazines stacked upon it. Father approached the secretary at the far side of the room. The woman looked like a re-animated drowned rat… She wore an ugly green dress that looked like it belonged in a museum rather than being worn by a living person. She also had a pair of obnoxiously oversized pink owl-like glasses, and last but not least it appeared that her greying brown hair had been recently dyed, only it had clearly been done incorrectly… leaving her with some patches that were far too dark and others that were completely untouched by the dye altogether.

"Benedict Uno, I have an appointment to speak with Mr. Harth." Father said flatly to this woman… to top off her ridiculous appearance she smelled like some god-awful cologne that had to be ten years past its expiration date…

"Mr. Harth has been expecting you." The woman said in a plain monotone voice as she began to file her nails, not even really looking at Father. "But unfortunately he is still in a meeting at the moment… please take a seat; he should be finished shortly."

Fathers' fiery aura flared angrily for a second; but it calmed down almost instantaneously… and with a defeated sigh he walked over to one of the nearby chairs and slumped down into it. Only to find that the chairs were indeed every bit as uncomfortable as they looked. It wasn't until he went to grab one of the boring magazines off of the coffee table that he realized he wasn't alone in this waiting room…

Sitting directly across from him was a young girl, probably no older than 9. She had long midnight black hair that appeared to go down to her waist; her skin appeared to be oddly pale almost as though she didn't get a lot of sun, her eyes were hidden behind a pair of black sunglasses that looked remarkably similar to the pair that Nigel Uno wore. She wore an ocean blue long-sleeved shirt that appeared to have a black and blue flame design on its elbows, around the collar, and finally a single black and blue flame on its chest. She also wore a pair of loose baggy black pants, and black sneakers. Also in her hair was a particularly beautiful handmade glass barrette in the form of a blue rose. Father took note of that barrette for a rather obvious reason… It looked far more beautiful than any normal kid would be seen wearing; and it looked like it had to be extremely expensive… Fathers' eyes narrowed suspiciously. Harth hated kids just as much, if not more than he did… so what the heck was a kid doing here? The girls head shifted slightly and she appeared to give father a bit of a half-interested sideways glance… but then shrugged and resumed what she had been doing prior to his arrival; drawing in a small sketchbook with a few crayons… perfectly content to ignore the silhouetted adult.

_And that was the case for two very long hours…_

"Be with you shortly my butt…" Father hissed angrily under his breath. Two hours of waiting around in an uncomfortable chair in a waiting room with his only company being some stupid kid was making him more and more irritable by the second. He was tempted to just get up and leave right then and there-

A small clattering sound brought Fathers attention back to reality. Apparently the girl had dropped one of her crayons and it proceeded to roll across the floor before stopping at his feet…

"Aw crud…" The girl grumbled as she looked over at Father whose eyes narrowed when it became obvious what she was going to ask...

"Could you please hand me that?" The girl asked politely… of course Fathers response was hardly polite back.

"Get it yourself brat!" He growled evilly back at the young girl… at first she just stared back at him a little surprised by his response. But then her expression quickly became extremely angry and she glared icily back at him.

"Who spat in your cereal ya' crank!" She snapped, causing Fathers signature fire to ignite around his body… although this surprisingly did not seem to intimidate this kid.

"What did you say?" He roared evilly. The girl didn't respond; she just took in a deep breath and exhaled slowly… then proceeding to completely tune out the raging adult in front of her and refocused her attention on the fallen crayon that had sparked this entire argument, having apparently decided that she should have just gotten the stupid crayon by herself to start with… she sighed in a somewhat defeated sounding manner.

_And she moved her wheelchair forward, grabbed the crayon and rolled back…_

Father blinked a few times in pure surprise, the flames of his anger seeming to dissipate almost instantly… he hadn't even noticed that the kid was in a wheelchair; of course he was so distracted it almost wasn't surprising. But just as he was about to say something else to this little brat-

"Mr. Uno!" Harth's secretary called to him, successfully stealing away his attention. "Mr. Harth will see you now."

"Well it's about time!" Father snapped, gladly trying to put as much space as he possibly could between himself and the girl in the wheelchair… simply because he didn't want to make it look like he was picking a fight with a handicapped kid… that would be low even for him.

As Father approached the door to Harth's office he noted the a trio of particularly well dressed individuals currently exiting the room… one was clearly a doctor of sorts, judging by his medical bag and the stethoscope round his neck. The other two Father guessed were possibly lawyers… but he wasn't so sure about that one; they could just be some of Harths business partners for all he knew. Either way, Father could have cared less about who they were… once they were out of the way he entered the office of Ezekiel Harth.

Father immediately noticed that the office was furnished lavishly, with its primary color scheme being red and gold. There, sitting in a large antique wingback chair, behind a large solid oak desk was old man Harth… If he had been standing Harth would have stood roughly the same height as Father. He wore a black suit and black shoes; his skin was pale and very wrinkled, his short hair was powder white but still had remained quite thick in spite of his old age, another thing that had remained virtually unchanged about Ezekiel were his eyes… even now, well past his prime his acid green eyes were haunting.

There was a long uncomfortable silence between the two men… and a shudder ran its way up Fathers spine. Harth had a glare that was chillingly similar to the angry glares his own father would give him. The fact that his father was now dead only added to the discomfort he felt under the older man's stare.

"Ah Benedict Uno… I'd say it's nice to see you; only it isn't..." Ezekiel growled irritably at Father… the old man's voice sounded like fingernails on a blackboard… Father clenched his fist and it took every single drop of his self-control not to launch off a fireball right at the old man's face right then and there.

"If the only reason you called me down here was to insult me Harth I'm leaving right now." Father snarled wickedly. But Ezekiel's eyes flashed dangerously…

"Sit down Benedict… we have to talk." Ezekiel said with a voice so cold that it could freeze blood in the veins… he gestured to a chair that was in front of his desk. Father sat down with a huff; he just wanted this to get this over with as fast as possible. Although he took a quick glance at the varying knick-knacks spread over Ezekiel's desk… just a picture frame that held a picture that Father couldn't see, a nameplate, an intercom that probably went to his secretary's desk, a computer, and oddly enough what looked like a bright purple glass flower… only it looked like it was made incorrectly, with several petals either distorted or missing… that struck Father as sort of odd. Ezekiel could buy whatever he wanted, and he could afford the best. Why would he have a piece of junk like that? Either way it didn't actually matter…

"What do you want old man?" Father growled… Ezekiel took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Then he set his sights on the silhouetted man before him.

"Before we begin… I saw you arguing with Sasha. What was that about?" Ezekiel inquired darkly. Father honestly looked both surprised and confused.

"Who?"

"The girl in the wheelchair. Why did you yell at her?" Ezekiel questioned… but even Father could tell he was holding back a lot of what he _really_ wanted to say.

"It was just over some stupid crayon." Father said flatly; what the heck this had to do with anything he couldn't even guess… "I didn't know she was in a wheelchair when I yelled at her though... not that it really matters; and I don't get what some snot-nosed little brat in a wheelchair has to do with anything." At this Ezekiel became noticeably angry and he leaned over his desk and got right up in Fathers face… hate coursing through every single wrinkle on his face.

"Sasha is NOT a brat Benedict! Don't you ever say that again!" He seethed, actually causing Father to flinch a little from the old man's booming voice.

"Still what does that kid have to do with anything?" Father snapped back; fire now freely engulfing his form. Ezekiel looked a bit taken aback; obviously he had not counted on actually seeing Fathers near legendary temper. But… his eyes suddenly fell as though he had suddenly become extremely sad.

"I'm afraid that my Granddaughter has a lot to do with why I called you Benedict." He said softly…

_It was as though someone stabbed a knife right in Fathers heart…_

"Wait… Granddaughter?" Father stuttered his eyes wide with a mix of both shock and horror. "But that would mean she's-"

"Mariah's daughter? Indeed… she's Mariah's only child." Ezekiel said coldly. Although his eyes were trained on Father; almost as though he was studying the younger man's reaction. Father was quiet for a long time… but then it was like a floodgate of anger and rage just broke free and washed over him. The fires of his wrath ignited around his body as he stood up; the flames bathed the entire room in a hellish red light.

"Well isn't that just great! Did you hear about the prank Mariah pulled on me and now you want to pull one on me too? By showing me my ex-girlfriends daughter? I bet she has a nice loving family to now doesn't she? I bet she now has everything she ever wanted!" Father raged. "Did you bring me here to tell me that? Did you bring me here to tell made to my face that I wasn't good enough for your daughter? Is that the real reason you called me here? Well is it?"

"Mariah's dead…" Harth said his voice now cold and distant. A look of bitterness now written across his face. This revelation stopped Father dead in his tracks. An icy cold feeling suddenly began to form inside of his chest.

"What?"

"Mariah's dead Benedict… She died six months ago." Ezekiel continued… But then he fixed his eyes on Father and a hate so powerful burned in his face it honestly looked like he could've killed Father right then and there. "She died... a few nights before she planned to visit you! A drunk driver slammed right into her car and killed her! And my granddaughter was flung through the windshield of the car and now might never walk again!" The old man snarled.

Father sat down very heavily. He hadn't seen this coming… He never even thought that Mariah may have been hurt or something of the sorts and that was why she didn't come. He suddenly felt both very foolish and nauseous all the same time… Even though he had tried to distance himself from the memories of his past, his old friend, he still couldn't believe that she was really... gone…

"What Mariah saw in you Benedict I'll never know… You were _**never**_ good enough for her. But you were the only man she ever had eyes for. She loved you… While I don't even think you know how to love! Look at you, you're a broken doll! Broken by your father in a fit of rage because you took your mother's life when you were born!" At this Father's head snapped up, and he looked at Ezekiel like he had just grown another head. But Ezekiel looked at him and almost seemed to sneer at the reaction he had now gotten from him, as he doubted that Benedict knew this particular story.

"Oh that's right, you never knew… It's funny because your father would frequently tell me this story if he was drunk enough. I always thought it was odd that I was the one your father would call he needed a ride home after he drank too much… But there's a funny little story with your birth Benedict; something went wrong; and as your father put it, you came out of your mother in a sea of blood… Some vein or something had ruptured when your mother was having you and she died… It tore your father's soul apart. And he always blamed you for it. Just like I blame you for the death of my child… My poor sweet Mariah…" Ezekiel said quickly wiping some forming tears out of his eyes at the mention of his deceased daughter. He didn't need to say what he had just said to Benedict about his mother… But it wasn't a lie, and Ezekiel just wanted to make the other man hurt right now. And since his family was probably still a sore subject for Father, it wasn't hard for him to stab a sharp stick into that open wound…

Father was very quiet… If looks could kill Ezekiel would be dropping dead with multiple daggers in his back. He wanted this nightmare of a meeting to end… He wanted to go home and sit deep in the darkness of his mansion… most of all he just wanted to be alone…

"What do you really want Ezekiel?" Father questioned trying to act like what he had just learned about his parents didn't bother him… No matter how much it really did. Only now Ezekiel remained quiet before he shook his head put his face in his hands.

"No… No… It really wasn't you… You aren't responsible for Mariah death." He mumbled, quietly… So quietly that Father only barely heard him. If he didn't know any better he'd swear that Ezekiel was having a senile moment. That's when the old man looked at him, and he saw something totally different than the man he knew… What he now so was just a tired, broken, sad, lonely old man.

"Mariah's death is not on your head… I only wish it was. Mariah died because of me. I blame myself…" He whispered.

"_If I would have let her tell you that you had fathered her child, maybe she'd still be alive today."_

Now at this Father really jumped! What did Ezekiel just say? Oh no, no nonononononononononono eleventy-billion times no! There was no way he could have-

"But we always used protection!" Father exclaimed in pure horror. Ezekiel merely shook his head.

"Congratulations Benedict, you now know that condoms are only 97% effective in preventing pregnancy…" Ezekiel said simply watching now as fire once again consumed Father's form.

"I am going to be writing one nasty letter to a condom company about this!" Father roared… Although strangely enough in spite of the situation, this actually got a chuckle out of old man Harth. Who was now waiting for Benedict to calm down before they continued on any further with this meeting. And within another 5 minutes father had cooled down enough to be thinking a little more rationally.

"Okay fine so the brat is mine… I don't want anything to do with her; I hate kids!" He snapped. At this Ezekiel's eyes narrowed. And then he closed his eyes altogether… And his shoulders slumped almost in defeated manner.

"Benedict… There's a reason I called you here. Not only did I need to tell you about Sasha, I need you to take her to live with you for a little while." Ezekiel said, his solemn expression not changing.

"No way! No how! Not happening!" Father protested unintentionally forming fireballs around his tightly clenched fists. "Give me one good reason why I should take this kid in?"

"Because I'm dying? How is that one for you?"

_Father gapped like a fish. He had not seen that one coming. _

"I don't have long left Benedict… I only have six months left to live, give or take a bit here or there. And now I find myself with quite a big problem; aside from the warm breath of my maker on my back… except for me Sasha doesn't have any family. She's already lost her mother and now I'll be leaving her… She's going to have no one left. That's why I called you."

"Sorry to burst your bubble old man… But I already have Five kids of my own. My Delightful Children. What in the world would I want with a regular kid like her?" Father hissed evilly.

"Delightful Children? You mean those little brats that live in your house… I know all about them and how you '_Delightfulized'_them. Quite frankly the thought of it makes me want to puke. And if you must know… I don't intend for you to permanently take care of Sasha. It would only be temporary, until I can find someone better… Her biological father or not you're still a loser and a little whiny brat in your own right. I would only need you to take care of her for the month, so I can finish the arrangement for her to live with someone else."

"Still why should I agreed to this?" Father demanded.

"Because… my daughter cared for you so much… And that girl meant the world to Mariah. Can't you do this one little thing for her sake?" At this something truly unexpected happened… the tiniest, nearly microscopic shred of light left inside of Fathers soul began to burn… reminding him that no matter how many ways he looked at it; Mariah had been his friend… at one point he loved her… he did owe her...

"…Alright… fine. I'll watch the brat for one month and not a day more." Father surrendered. And Ezekiel nodded, pulling out a cigar and a lighter from within his desk.

"That'll make you two even." Harth stated tonelessly, trying in vain to get the lighter to light… But; Father couldn't help but wonder one last thing… and if he didn't ask it now, it would certainly nag at him later on.

"Why did Mariah never try to tell me that she had a kid?" He questioned darkly.

"Because I talked her out of it." Ezekiel stated without any hesitation whatsoever. "When she originally left you, she didn't even know she was pregnant. But when she found out, she wanted to tell you… but I told her that you didn't want children, and if she returned to you with a child it would be like she was forcing you into something you didn't want and you'd only end up resenting her for it." Ezekiel said throwing the clearly dead lighter into a nearby waste bin. "Oh and you should know… Sasha doesn't know that you're her Father. I just told her she'd be staying with a friend of mine until my house has been renovated."

"And… she bought that?" Father questioned darkly. Ezekiel shrugged as he placed the un-lit cigar in his mouth anyway.

"Doubt it, but Sasha's a good girl. She doesn't ask too many questions when she's told to do something. She also doesn't know that I'm dying… and I want to keep it that way." Harth said flatly.

"That's going to be a nasty surprise old man." Father warned.

Not that Harth paid him any mind at all; he just pressed the button on his intercom. "Gertrude, could you please tell Sasha to come in."

"At once sir." The monotone voice of his secretary replied quickly. Within a few seconds the door to the office opened and the girl, Sasha, entered the room; smiling quite warmly at her Grandfather.

"Sasha, this is Father. The man who I said you'd be staying with for a little while." Harth said in an uncharacteristically nice voice, successfully earning him a strange look from Father not only because of his suddenly sweet voice, but also because it was the first time Harth had ever called him by his alias. But Sasha's face only filled with one very readable expression… WTF?

"What? Grandpa that guy's psychotic! I picked that up from talking to him for only 2 minutes!" Sasha protested.

"I am not!" Father snapped back at Sasha flames springing to life all around him once again…

"You're not helping your case _Father_." Harth said flatly, though emphasizing his name in a warning manner. "And Sasha, don't be rude… oh and would you mind?" Ezekiel said holding out his cigar. At once Sasha brought her hand up and a small ball of bright black and blue flames erupted from her palm and lit her grandfather's cigar for him.

_The pipe nearly fell out of Fathers mouth…_

Ezekiel puffed the cigar twice before exhaling a long contented sigh. "Ah, that's good." He said before suddenly broke out into a terrible coughing fit.

"Grandpa are you ok?" Sasha asked worriedly; but Harth just held up a hand and after taking in a few long rattling breaths ceased his coughing.

"I'm fine sweetheart, _(cough) (cough)_ now _(cough) _you behave for Father… and take off your sunglasses, you don't need them when you're inside." The old man stuttered… Sasha paused, but eventually sighed and took off her sunglasses…

…_revealing her large amber colored eyes… _

"Good girl… now go get your things and wait outside." And with that Sasha wheeled her way back out the way she came… Once again leaving the two men alone.

"I take it that any doubts she's your daughter have been successfully resolved?" Ezekiel said in a very contented manner.

"Aw shut up…" Father grunted… feeling that migraine he had from earlier just grow a whole level worse. "Anything else you wanna tell me before I go?"

"Only that she has Physical Therapy every Wednesday… other than that, you're pretty much set." Harth commented waving his hand in a way that indicated Father was dismissed. He stood; his back cracking loudly as he did so… but just as he was ready to leave.

"Oh and Benedict…" Harth said causing Father to cast him a glance from over his shoulder. "If you hurt Sasha… you'll regret it." The old man warned icily.

Father did not respond to this… he just walked out of the office and slammed the door behind now he was just too damn tired to care anymore. Although as he began walking out of this place he determined two very important things.

_1) Never tempt fate by saying things can't get any worse… _

_2) This was going to be one long month…_


	2. Glass Flowers

**Thank you so much for the reviews! I love knowing that people are enjoying this story ^_^ I also should have mentioned before, this story takes place before I.N.T.E.R.V.I.E.W.S, so Numbuh 1 is still gonna be in this, I just figured I better mention that now to avoid confusion in future chapters. Ok then, on with the story!**

**Chapter 2**

**Glass Flowers**

…_The drive back to the mansion was just as Father predicted it to be, long and awkward…_

Both Father and Sasha sat in the back seat of Fathers' chauffeured Town-car, and the silence was so thick it could be cut with a knife. Father sat arms crossed looking out the car window at the world as it went by… Sasha meanwhile was going the exact same thing; only she was looking out the opposite window of the car tuning out the idiot whose care she had been left in; and she was also holding a medium sized black backpack very tightly. Aside from her backpack, she only had two average sized suitcases that had been placed in the car's trunk, along with her wheelchair which was revealed to be able to fold up for travel convenience.

"You know… in spite of what my Grandpa says; I don't need anyone's help." Sasha said flatly breaking the near death like silence. "I can take care of myself." Father narrowed his eyes and glared irritably at the small girl.

"Really? Could have fooled me…" he replied sarcastically. "You're not exactly the definition of a '_perfectly normal'_ kid…" At this it was Sasha's turn to glare.

"I'm not going to be in this wheelchair for long… I'll be back walking any day now!" She growled defiantly. Father raised an eyebrow… that right there was a perfect example of that annoying never-ending hope that all kids seem to have. Although Father knew that reality was really going to bite this kid very hard, very soon…

"Yeah; '_sure'_ you are…" Father said in an almost mocking voice. "But as long as we're talking I may as well lay out the rules of my house; for starters you will **NOT** annoy me or my Delightful Children!"

"No problem…" Sasha replied grumpily. "If your kids are anything like you I'll '_happily'_ avoid them as much as I will be avoiding you." Father felt the flames of his rage boiling to the surface at hearing her snarky tone… but he used all of his self-restraint to avoid creating flames in the back of the car… as it had a tendency to distract his chauffer.

"Next, just because I have a car with a chauffeur doesn't mean you have **ANY** right to go **ANYWHERE** without **MY** **PERMISSION**!"

"To be fair… I have to go to my doctors every Wednesday. But if you're busy I don't wanna have to interrupt what you're doing… So… can I have permission ahead of time to be driven to my doctors and back?" Sasha inquired… Father thought about it for a minute before deeming this request to be acceptable enough.

"Fine… but **ONLY** there and back."

"Now I have a rule…" Sasha stated darkly. "Do not touch any of my stuff."

"I'm not going to go near any of your junk brat!" Father snapped, still barely managing to keep his fiery temper in check. "As long as it's kept out of my sight I'll have no reason to touch it!"

"That was the only thing I had to reinforce…" Sasha said calmly. Although it appeared that she did tighten her grip on her backpack. Almost as though she was afraid of losing whatever it was that it contained.

"And finally if you have any problem with your schoolwork, homework, or whatever… do not come crying to me with it! I couldn't care less what your problems are, so don't bother me with them!" Father growled.

"Whatever you say- wait… did you say school?" Sasha questioned, looking at Father with a look of pure confusion written across her face.

"Did you think that you were just gonna loaf around my mansion all day? Think again! I'm sending you to the same school my Delightful Children go to; Gallagher Elementary!" Father hissed wrathfully. But Sasha suddenly gulped nervously and tried to re-focus her attention out the window.

"It's not that…" She muttered softly. "It's just… I've never been to school before."

"You're kidding." Father said, honestly quite surprised by this.

"My Mom… used to homeschool me." Sasha said sadly… it was all too apparent that the subject of her mother was still a raw wound in her heart. But Fathers heart was numb to her pain…

"Well… you're Mother isn't here…" Father said icily… although for reasons even he couldn't figure out his own heart thudded painfully in his chest when he said this… "You start school first thing tomorrow."

Sasha glared hatefully at Father. And much to his surprise he saw small blue flames dancing around her hands… like she would love nothing more than to throw a fireball at his head. But then she took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. The flames disappearing in the process… she then resumed looking out the car window again ignoring the sourpuss old adult. The silence once again fell between the two individuals and that was the way it remained for several hours that way until the car pulled up into the driveway of the mansion. By then it was getting late; the sun having already begun to set.

"_Home sweet home…"_ Father thought coldly. It seemed as though his beautiful mansion looking slightly less welcoming right now… but the whole world felt like it was bearing down on Fathers shoulders at the moment so that could easily explain that. He got out of his car and walked over to the trunk, getting out Sasha's wheelchair and two suitcases… Turning around he saw that Sasha had opened her door and was currently holding onto the top of the now open door, letting her body dangle limply as she waited for Father to bring her wheelchair over to her; which he did… but he pretty much just left the chair next to her and began walking towards his front door while still carrying her two suitcases; he was not in the least bit concerned about how she was actually going to get into her wheelchair.

Although he apparently didn't need to be; once the chair was close enough to her, Sasha just swung off the door and landed heavily in her wheelchair… after a moment of adjusting herself she quickly managed to catch up to Father and was able to keep up with his stride... until a much more noticeable problem presented itself.

_Namely the stairs up to the mansions front door…_

Sasha looked at this and her frown deepened; this was going to be a real issue. But before she could say anything, she felt her something strange… and before she say anything her wheelchair quite literally levitated up the stairs and thudded down in front of the front door… Sasha looked nothing short of freaked out as she looked around trying to figure out just what had happened; then her eyes looked up at Father, a mix of both curiosity and awe behind them.

"How did you-"

"Tomorrow there'll be a board or something set up so you can get up here on your own." Father said tonelessly as he fiddled with his keys looking for the one that unlocked the front door. Sasha eyed him warily, as he had just gone up a whole level on the '_creepy'_ factor… but still…

"Errr… thanks for… that… and for letting me stay here." She said with a sigh. One way or another, she was stuck with this guy for a month. And looking back, she hadn't exactly been very nice to this man… why make an already tough situation tougher? After all…

…_her Mother had taught her better manners than that._

"Just shut up and stay outta my way…" was Fathers only reply as he finally got the door open and walked inside.

"Whatever you say… you old crank." Sasha muttered darkly realizing that her attempt at being nice was virtually ignored… Once inside Sasha saw that indeed the mansions interior was beautiful… but there was one thing that _**really**_ caught her attention, and she honestly didn't know how to react to _this_…

"Welcome home Father." The monotone voices of the Delightful Children droned as Father walked inside. Sasha stared at them like they were some sort of freak in a sideshow… The Delightful Children responded to her with the exact same look. "Who is **she**?"

"This is… um…what's your name again?" Father questioned causing Sasha to roll her large amber eyes.

"My name is Sasha! S-A-S-H-A! It's not that hard to remember!" She snapped angrily… which led to Father chuckling wickedly and getting right up in the girls face.

"Let's make another thing very clear then _Sasha_… **IN MY HOUSE I'M THE** **ONLY ONE WHO GETS TO DO THE VOICE RAISING!**" He roared as a towering flame erupted from around his body. Sasha visibly recoiled from him at this, honestly quite afraid... "Now then…" he said composing himself once again. "Sasha is going to be staying here for a month; and for that month you will not fight with each other! Are we clear?"

"But Father!" The Delightful's whined, casting Sasha looks of disgust and anger.

"**NO BUTS**!" Father snapped, flames once again adorning his body "You will **ALL** behave! Understood?"

"…yes Father…" the Delightful Children said, their hollow monotone voices resounding with defeat. Sasha said nothing; she merely nodded quietly trying to focus her attention on… pretty much anything else. But her attention was once again drawn back to Father as he motioned for her to follow him down one of the mansions many hallways, which she quickly did… quite frankly Sasha wanted to put quite a bit of distance between herself and those creepy kids. Although much to her dismay they too were following Father, walking directly behind Sasha. Their nearly soulless eyes were boring into Sasha's back like a knife, making her feel all the more uncomfortable and unwelcome here. After a few more long minutes of silence Father stopped in front of a room and opened the door.

"This will be your room; keep it clean, keep it down, and stay outta my hair." Father growled pretty much throwing Sasha's suitcases into the room. "And there's a bathroom down the hall…" At that Father turned on his heel and began walking away. That was it, he was done… the rest the brat could figure out on her own… now he was going to retreat into his sanctum and try to repair his frayed nerves.

"Thank you." Sasha said flatly… she still had manners, even if her host was being rude. But before Sasha was free to enter her room, she found herself blocked by the Delightful Children.

"Now you listen here," the five kids said in a surprisingly icy tone. "We don't know what you staying in our house is all about… but you better show us respect!"

"Don't worry; I'm not exactly planning on interacting with you weirdo's much at all…" Sasha grumbled making her way past the Delightful's and into the room.

"Sleep tight- ow!" The Delightful Children began… only to have Sasha slam the door in their faces. More than likely she'd probably hit them right in their noses… Finally free, Sasha let out an exhausted sigh. To tell the truth she had been a lot more intimidated by the man, Father than she had let on. And those five kids… there was something just not right about them. Something in their eyes just gave her the creeps.

Sasha turned around and looked at the room she was given; it was actually very nice inside. It was decent sized, of course in a mansion this big it might be considered somewhat small… but to Sasha it was just the ideal size. It had all the furniture any guest would need; a nice bed with black sheets, a small dark red dresser, a black carpet, a clock on the wall, a writing desk, and then finally a nightstand with a lamp on it. There was also a large window that overlooked the mansions grounds.

"_Admire the view later… it's time to get to work_." Sasha thought to herself as she gently set her backpack down on the bed and then set her sights on her two suitcases. Once she opened the first one of her bags it revealed that it was only filled with the basics; such as some clean clothes, a few sets of pajamas, a dark blue bathrobe, shampoo, hairbrush, toothbrush, etc. Sasha wasted no time in organizing her clothes into the dresser. And ultimately deciding that for the toothbrush and other such necessities, it would just be best if she kept them in the suitcase for now… as she didn't want those creepy kids doing something gross like dropping her toothbrush in the toilet or something equally nasty… before continuing onto the second suitcase Sasha selected an extremely large baggy black pajama shirt, and a pair of blue pajama pants to wear to bed that night. And only once she was dressed did she open up her second suitcase.

Unlike the first suitcase, the second was filled with all kinds of kinck-knacks and other various items and decorations. The first things Sasha took out were several folded up black paper lanterns; ten in total. Each was adorned with Sasha's signature blue flame decal. After unfolding each one, Sasha glanced around the room trying to determine where might be the best place to set them up…

"…_duh_…" Sasha thought and she smiled a very broad smile before holding out one of the lanterns and igniting a very small tongue of blue flame inside of it, being very careful not to make the flames to big and accidently burn the lantern. Once the small flame dancing within its core, the lantern hovered for a moment then gradually ascended a few feet up and away from Sasha and then finally it ceased its wandering flight right in the center of the room; causing an eerie muted dark light to fill the room. Sasha did this to eight of the nine remaining lanterns, each floating to a different spot somewhere around the room; and then finally for the last one, she removed the lampshade from the lamp on the nightstand and placed this lantern over it.

"Perfect." Sasha said, smiling as she observed her handiwork and finding she was actually quite content with it. "Now… what else to do?" Sasha muttered returning her attention to her suitcases contents… all at once Sasha's gold eyes seem to light up like the sun and her smile broadened. "Alright! I forgot that I packed this stuff!" At this Sasha pulled out several odd items; a metal tray, a water bottle, a small scalpel, a large stainless steel cup, and what looked like several small canisters… in fact it looked like the rest of the bag was filled with these canisters. Each was fairly large and silver in color with virtually no distinguishing marks between them; in fact the only way they were different at all was that each one had a different colored tape around its center. Sasha put the metal tray and two canisters on the desk; one had a red piece of tape, the other had dark green; then quickly poured water from the water bottle into the steel cup and placed the scalpel to the side of the tray. Once she quickly checked that everything was prepared she picked up the red-taped canister…

…_and poured red sand onto the metal tray…_

Sasha then ran her hands through the sand until she had it smoothed over the entire tray. Sasha then cracked her knuckles loudly before her hands were immediately engulfed in searing hot blue flames. And she began to slowly trace her hands back and forth over the sand…

…_until it became nothing but a sheet of molten glass…_

That's when Sasha quickly picked up the scalpel and she began to quickly cut small pieces from the molten goop and merge them together in a rough pattern, all the while keeping an incredibly high amount of heat on the rest of goo to prevent it from hardening too quickly… since Sasha could create and control fire it was not very surprising that she could also handle the insanely hot molten glass without any danger of burning herself in the process. And to her working with the red hot goop felt similar to working with wet clay. Although truth be told Sasha was barely focusing on what she was doing; as this was something she had been doing for a very long time. It was practically second nature to her by now, much like controlling the flames... as Sasha continued on with her current project she began to let her mind wander back over the events that had transpired throughout the day; aside from wondering what the hell her Grandpa was thinking sticking her with this man who couldn't have been any more rude or downright unsocial; she realized that she'd unintentionally fibbed to Father…

…_She had gone to school before… but it had ended in complete disaster. _

Sasha remembered that day, she had only been 5 years old and was going to preschool for the first time. Her mother had been so excited, telling her there was nothing to be afraid of, and that she would have a wonderful time and make lots new friends… But that hadn't been the case; Sasha had almost instantly been alienated and lonely… As she did not have very good people skills at the time, and what was worse; a boy began to bully her, and quite brutally at that. The boy had stuck a large wad of gum in her hair, stole her backpack… but the final straw had been when he'd dragged her into the boys' room and given her a swirlee… something had snapped inside of Sasha at that; and that was the day that she created her first flames.

Created but not controlled was the catch; Sasha's powers erupted quite violently from her body, severely burning her tormentor and accidently lighting the boys room on fire… which proceeded to burn a very large portion of the preschool in the process… and needless to say Sasha had been promptly dismissed from that preschool…

But in spite of what happened, Sasha's mother was not mad or upset with her… she had held her daughter close and wiped away all of her tears. Saying how sorry she was for sending her to school when she was not ready… And from that day forward Sasha's mother homeschooled her, as she was already a teacher at a different school. Her mother also made it a priority to teach her a lot about self-defense, gymnastics, and martial arts. With her mother's guidance Sasha learned how to be strong and independent... traits that she found came surprisingly easy. Mariah had also been determined to make sure that Sasha could take care of herself should she ever need to… and then finally she also introduced Sasha to the idea of using her fire to make glass art; an idea which Sasha loved.

From that day forward Sasha's hobby was making glass sculptures. While her creations were simple at first, they had eventually grown more and more complicated and elaborate until Sasha had found that she had a particular talent for making flowers out of glass. Sasha also remembered that no matter how hard things got for her mother, she never let it get to her… A trait that her mother had successfully passed on to her. For even now in her current state, Sasha was determined that she would not stay down for long; she would walk again. She refused to believe that being confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her life was even a possibility. She also refused to let anything get her down… She'd make her grandfather proud of her. She'd make mother proud of her…

Which brought Sasha back to her current project; she just finished putting the last molten petal onto the rough design of a flower, she then placed the searing hot sculpture into cup of water for cooling... once she was done with that she scooped up all the remaining goo and lumped it together and put it off to the side, letting it cool slowly. She then opened the other container revealing this one to be full of green colored sand. Once again Sasha repeated her pattern of smoothing the sand out and super heating it to a molten state only unlike the first time Sasha was not crafting a flower this time but the stem, which took considerably less time than the first part of this entire project… Once she was done making the stem; she dipped her hand into the cup and pulled out the actual flower, now that it was done cooling. Without waiting at all Sasha stuck the stem to the flowers base and quickly looked the flower over; lopping off a few rough ends that had formed when it cooled. And just like that she placed the whole thing back in cup… Then after a few minutes Sasha pulled the entire completed piece out.

_It was a beautiful glass rose…_

"This one came out really nice." Sasha said looking over the finished glass flower before setting it down on the nightstand. She suddenly yawned and stretched her back a little bit before casting a glance at the clock.

… _2 AM…_

"Oh crud…" Sasha muttered realizing how late it was and she quickly cleaned up her things and put them into one of the drawers in the desk. She realized that if she was going to be starting school in the morning she was only going to have about five hours sleep, maybe less… Actually it was undoubtedly less…

Since her mother passed away; Sasha had not been sleeping well at all. Her dreams were haunted with nightmares and visions of the accident over and over again. That night was permanently ingrained into Sasha's memory and would give her no peace.

"At least it's not storming out…" She grumbled as she made her way over to the bed and looked at the backpack that was still on it… Very slowly Sasha opened this bag;

…_and pulled out a picture of her mother and her set in a beautiful glass frame…_

Sasha was silent, tracing her hand over her mother's image… She found that she could not stop the tears forming in her eyes and cascading down her cheeks like twin waterfalls. She struggled to get a grip on the crying and after a few minutes she did manage to compose herself. She placed the photo on the nightstand next to the rose and with a little bit of work managed to get herself into the bed. She then opened the bag once more and pulled out two stuffed Rainbow Monkeys. One purple, the other blue; she then pulled out the final stuffed animal only this one was not a Rainbow Monkey. This one was a raggedy old stuffed lion, only it was unusual because its fur was as black as night, and its mane was as white as snow. She placed this stuffed animal with the two Rainbow Monkeys and reached into the backpack once more and pulled out a large, leather-bound photo album.

This was Sasha's personal photo album and it also harbored some of her most cherished moments… she flipped it open only to see a picture of her and her mother sitting together watching a movie in their living room… That picture had been taken on Sasha's 7th birthday; she and her mom had been doing the one thing Sasha loved to do on her birthday… stay up late, eat smore's and watch scary movies. Strangely enough Sasha had never been very big on birthday cake like most kids; she'd always rather have a couple of smores over cake.

Sasha shook her head in order to bring herself back to reality and avoid another crying fit. She closed the book and put it under her pillow… and with that Sasha reached into her bag for the final time to pull out the last object…

… _It looked like part of a broken music box…_

This was Sasha's most precious belonging; her mother's music box. For as long as Sasha could remember it was always broken, her mother said it broke back when she was little girl… but it held such sweet memories that she could never find herself able to part with it. It was a strange little device that was made of silver and perfectly circular, and around its center were five holes with broken jagged pieces sticking out of it, and in its center was part of what look like a broken red flame. It must've been very beautiful back in its day… yet in spite of being broken it could still play a beautiful melody. According to Sasha's mother, no two people ever heard the same song.

To Sasha this music box harbored so many happy memories with her mother that the thought of throwing it away was appalling. In fact prior to her death, her mother had given it to her saying that with her daughter skills she was sure that she could fix it. Now her mother's beliefs stood as a goal; she would fix the music box up to be as beautiful is once was, even though she didn't have a picture of what it looked like before… she had a pretty good idea of what she could make it look like. And it would be beautiful. The catch was that Sasha wanted to make this particular item completely flawless so it was going to take a lot of time. And she clearly could not start it tonight…

"Wish me luck, mom…" Sasha whispered as she wound the music box very carefully placed it next to her mother's picture and the glass rose. A single word was revealed to be written across its side…

_GODSEND..._

Neither Sasha or her mother could ever figure out what that meant… Sasha assumed that it was just the name of the company that made the music box. But her mother had said that she'd researched it, and no such company had ever existed… But that didn't matter right now; as the song it played was slow and beautiful… Sasha's heavy eyelids began to droop a little as her head fell back onto the pillow. For the first time in a long time she felt a peace wash over her and no nightmares forming like she usually had by now…

She saw what she dreamed was coming in the future, her legs working again, and many long happy years ahead of her with her grandfather… She saw her mother still alive… Even though she knew that that one was only her heart dreaming…

"Maybe school won't be so bad this time…" Sasha whispered as her eyelids slowly closed she fell deep into a dreamless slumber.

**Okay yeah I know that's not the way glass is really made but in my story in the KND universe it works that way… Once again thank you for reading and pretty please read and review!**


	3. A Bad First Day

**Chapter 3**

**A Bad First Day **

_Beep…_

_Beep…_

_Be-_** KABOOM!**

The sound of an alarm-clock being blown up by a fireball resounded throughout Fathers room. This morning was already going badly… the last thing anyone would want to hear when they were severely hung over was an annoying alarm-clock. With his stomach churning and his head spinning, Father struggled to get out of his bed… He'd done exactly what he'd planned last night; eaten Rocky Road until his stomach nearly burst and gotten completely smashed on booze. Only now he was paying the price… making him even crankier than he usually was.

_But still… mornings were mornings… _

In spite of his massive hangover, Father still managed to get up… even if he staggered a little and thought he was going to puke. He still managed to suppress all his nausea and his pounding headache as he walked down the hall and knocked loudly on the Delightful's door, signaling for them to get up and get ready for school. Usually that was all he ever needed to do for them, as they were more than capable of taking care of themselves. He turned around and began heading back to his own bedroom intent on trying to sleep off his hangover; but suddenly a thought hit him like a ton of bricks causing him to growl irritably and rub his temples as his massive headache suddenly got a whole lot worse.

_He almost forgot about Sasha…_

Here he was hoping that all the events that had taken place yesterday were just some booze induced hallucinations, but he was never that lucky... with an aggravated sigh he turned around and headed down another hallway that led to Sasha's room… since it was her first day it wouldn't be surprising that she wouldn't get up if all she heard was a knocking on the door so he was going to have to make doubly sure that the girl actually got up on time. So upon reaching her door he didn't even bother to knock, he just opened the door and walked right in.

Although he was honestly quite surprised when he saw the floating lanterns that illuminated the room with a faint blue light; it was especially nice due to his hangover, because anything bright was nothing short of extremely painful at the moment. He shook his head trying to re-focus on the task at hand… although all he really did was make himself extremely dizzy.

'_Damn hangover_…' he thought as he walked over to the sleeping girl and roughly pulled her covers off. Causing poor Sasha to wake up with a startled yelp.

"Get up; it's time for you to go to school." Father growled emotionlessly. Sasha blinked a few times in a mix of shock, sleepiness, and surprise… before narrowing her still-exhausted eyes irritably at Father.

"Gee, thanks for that great wakeup call… I've been meaning to add heart-attack to the list of injuries I've sustained lately." Sasha replied sarcastically. Not that Father paid her much mind; he was only focused on heading back to bed now; as normally the only thing he did in the mornings was wake up the Delightful Children, they could take care of themselves from there. Which is now what he expected Sasha to also be capable of doing… if she couldn't that was her problem not his; all he wanted now was just to sleep off his hangover.

Thankfully though Sasha was more than capable of taking care of herself, even if she was terribly groggy. And after a few moments she got right to making her bed and getting ready for school. And within 15 minutes she was fully dressed in her usual clothes; and she grabbed up her backpack, took a final glance around her room to make sure everything was nice and neat, then she closed the door and began heading back down the hallway she came down the previous night… only much to her dismay she wound up running into the Delightful Children at the front door. Their eyes narrowed darkly at the sight of their wheelchair bound guest.

"Oh it's you…" They said in their usual monotone voices. "We had hoped you were nothing but a bad dream."

Sasha leered at them, but took a deep breath and exhaled very slowly in order to calm her temper. She didn't need to say something to incite a fight this early in the morning. Besides there were five of them and one of her… not very good odds. "So… when does the school bus get here?"

"We do not take the school bus…" the Delightful's said as they put their noses up in the air in a snobby manner and opened the front door and proceeded to walk out. Sasha sighed, looking down at the mansions stairs… and whether it was sheer dumb luck, or the fact that Sasha happened to be very skilled with maneuvering her wheelchair, she somehow made it down the front stairs and made her way over to the awaiting town car. Once she was there the chauffer helped the girl into the car and folded up her wheelchair and placed it into the car's trunk.

…_then they were off…_

Predictably there was an extremely uncomfortable silence between Sasha and the Delightfuls. Although Sasha was barely conscious due to her lack of sleep; she was still conscious enough to feel uneasy... although she found that looking out the window helped to lower her said uneasiness. It was certainly better than staring at those creepy kids the entire way to school.

"Do not think that just because you are staying with us we are going to be your friends." They said coldly to Sasha; finally breaking the awkward silence. Sasha glared angrily back at them before reaching into the pocket of her sweatshirt and pulling out her sunglasses and quickly put them on.

"The thought never crossed my mind." She said flatly as she resumed looking out the window. This caused a low growl to come from the Delightfuls'… but thankfully the car pulled up into Gallagher Elementary's parking lot before they could say anything else. Once the chauffer opened the car door, the Delightfuls' quickly got out and proceeded to walk into the school as they always did; content to not give Sasha even so much as a second thought. The chauffer meanwhile proceeded to get Sasha's wheelchair out of the trunk and helped her get into it.

"Thank you." Sasha said kindly to Fathers chauffer, which caused him to blink a few times in surprise. Driving around Father and his bratty children was a thankless job even if it did pay well. He smiled down at Sasha and tipped his hat to her before continuing on his own way… But Sasha found that while she was completely awake now; she was also completely terrified as well.

She gulped nervously before slowly heading her way up to the school. It was a good thing all schools were required to have handicap ramps, that was at least one less thing that Sasha need to worry about as she made her way up to the door and went inside. Naturally her first stop was the main office... And after a few minutes of making sure all the required paperwork was in order; Sasha was given a schedule and told in what room her homeroom was in… finding the room was not a problem. But as Sasha nervously looked at the door that led to her new homeroom; her mind began to replay all of the horrors that she had experienced the first time she had gone to Preschool... even for a brave girl like Sasha, it was causing her courage falter.

"Maybe I can just hide in the bathroom until school is over." Sasha whispered nervously to herself as she began to try to sneak away from the classroom…

…_only to have the door open right behind her…_

"And who might you be?" The voice of a female teacher said from directly behind Sasha causing her to flinch at being caught trying to sneak away. "Would you happen to be the new student I was told would be joining my class today?" Sasha slowly looked behind her, only to look up at a very tall brunette woman with fair skin, green earrings, a pink outfit, and piercing eyes… and for the first time in a long time Sasha found herself unable to speak. Her voice just refused to work; and thus all she could do was nod.

"Alright then, please come inside honey. My name is Mrs. Thompson and I'll be your new homeroom teacher." She said as Sasha slowly and cautiously entered the room… Although as soon as Sasha entered the classroom almost instantly some kids began to whisper to one another and many of them just began staring at her. Clearly the most of the children here where not very familiar with seeing kids in wheelchairs.

_Sasha felt like a freak in a sideshow…_

"All right class, this is Sasha Harth. She's a new student here and I want everyone here to make her feel welcome." Ms. Thompson said as Sasha looked nervously around the classroom. "Now Sasha, why don't you tell us a little about yourself?"

…_**crickets chirp…**_

"Or not…" Ms. Thompson muttered upon realizing that the young girl was apparently far too nervous to speak. "Now Sasha, we're in the middle of a lesson and I realize you don't have a desk or a textbook… hopefully we'll have found one of each for you by tomorrow. But for right now, how about you look on with another student… hmmm… Abigail, would you let Sasha look on with you for today?"

"Sure thing Ms. T." Abigail Lincoln; aka Numbuh 5 said with a smile as she motioned for Sasha to come over to her desk, which the new girl hastily did.

"Thank you." Sasha said softly, trying very hard to hide her nervousness, although it was more than a little apparent to Numbuh 5.

"Hey no big." Numbuh 5 whispered, careful to keep her voice down so that Ms. Thompson wouldn't hear the two of them talking during class. "So you're new here? Did your family move somewhere nearby?"

"Uh… no, I'm just staying with someone for a little while." Sasha replied nervously. "Although… I might be here for good if everything goes well." Sasha hadn't exactly thought about this before. Her Grandpa wasn't a teacher like her mother was. So it was only logical that she'd really have to actually go to school now… maybe if things went well here she'd be permanently transferring to this school.

"Oh, so you probably don't know anybody here yet; or know your way around, do you?" Abby inquired. Sasha just shook her head.

"No… not really." Sasha said as she really didn't know her way around the building yet… and she also figured it best if she not mention that she knew the five weirdo's that she was staying with. She didn't want to immediately get alienated from all the other kids for being associated with those creeps.

"Then would you like it if I showed you around?" Numbuh 5 offered; after all she knew it was never easy to have to go to a new school; and quite frankly Abigail couldn't imagine having to do it… well… in a wheelchair. Not to mention that this girl did seem nice. And Abby prided herself on her good judge of character.

"Really? Wow… thanks." Sasha said a smile forming on her face. Her spark of courage slowly found itself growing stronger. things were certainly not shaping up to be nearly as disastrous as she had thought it was going to be.

"Miss Lincoln! Miss Harth! Pay attention!" Ms. Thompson said warningly.

"Yes ma'am." Both girls said quickly and immediately silenced their conversation for the time being. Both careful not to incite the wrath of the former Were-dog queen…

**(Sometime Later after Class has Ended)**

"Ugh, that's a lot of homework… even by Ms. Thompson's standards." Numbuh 5 muttered as she packed up all of her textbooks.

"Oh that's nothing; I used to do a whole lot more than this for homework." Sasha chuckled as she waited for Abby out in the hallway…

"Then I never want to go your old school!" A boy's voice said from directly behind Sasha. She looked…down… at none other than Numbuh 4, Wallabee Beatles.

"Yeah, by the sound of it you'd never pass that class!" Numbuh 5 said with a roll of her eyes quickly joining the others out in the hallway. "It's a wonder you pass at all with your homework as bad as it is."

"Hey!" Numbuh 4 growled before something falling out of Sasha's wheelchair suddenly caught his eye and he quickly picked it up. It was a small little contraption; that kinda looked like it was a piece of a radio's speaker, only much smaller. And on its back looked like a single small red button. "What's this thing?" Sasha's eyes widened.

"I've been wondering where I put that." Sasha said quickly taking it from Numbuh 4's grasp. "It's a recording device I've been working on."

"Recording device?" Abby questioned.

"It's for a broken music box I have; I want to record the sound it makes… just in case I accidently break it to the point it doesn't play anymore." Sasha said nervously as she quickly pocketed the small gizmo. "And I'm sorry… but I didn't catch your name." She said to Numbuh 4.

"M'names Wally, but you can call me Numbuh 4." He said proudly. Sasha blinked a few times in confusion.

"Numbuh 4? … Oh, you're with the Kids Next Door!" Sasha said mentally kicking herself for not figuring it out sooner. Naturally Sasha knew a bit about the Kids Next Door; there probably wasn't a kid on the planet who didn't.

"We both are." Abby said and began walking with her two companions down the hallway towards the school cafeteria, as it was lunch time by now.

"That's kinda cool." Sasha said smiling warmly at her newfound friends. "Maybe I can join one day?"

"You can't join! You're-" Numbuh 4 suddenly stopped himself in a rare moment of self-control… but not before Abby angrily smacked him upside his head with her hat.

"Now that was just cold Numbuh 4!" Abby hissed angrily at the smaller boy, before turning her attention back to Sasha… a cold, saddened look had already begun to settle on Sasha's face. "Ignore him girl… it's just… well not a lot of operatives are-"

"I get it ok." Sasha said a bit coldly. But her expression suddenly lightened a great deal and her warm smile returned to her face. "Maybe we'll discuss that after I can walk again… after all I'm not going to be in this wheelchair forever."

"That's better. Now let's get something to eat; I'm starving!" Numbuh 5 said hoping to change the subject as the three of them just entered the cafeteria… only after getting their disgusting cafeteria food did Abby notice that Sasha had suddenly begun to look a bit nervous again as she was clearly looking for a table to eat at… apparently she wasn't expecting to be invited to the same table that Abby and Wally were going to be sitting at.

"Come on girl, you can sit with us." Abby invited and immediately most of Sasha's nervousness disappeared once again; and she followed Numbuh's 4 and 5 over to the table where Nigel, Kuki, and Hoagie were already seated. Naturally there was a little bit of awkwardness at first… But after everyone introduced themselves, the awkwardness lessened and pretty soon everyone just started talking casually…

… _Everybody except Nigel that is…_

He wasn't being rude exactly. He just got a very strange feeling that Sasha looked very familiar to him. He was completely sure that he'd never met her, or even so much as seen her before. Yet there was just something eerily familiar about her that he couldn't quite place. And something inside of him was telling him that there was definitely something off about her. It wasn't that she wasn't nice; currently she and Kuki were talking about Rainbow Monkeys and other such things along those lines... He just could not shake the feeling that there was something very different about this girl… aside from the obvious… and this difference was not necessarily good either.

"Oooh I love your flower barrette!" Kuki said as innocently as ever, unable to tear her eyes away from the shiny blue flower barrette in Sasha's hair.

"Thank you; do you want me to make you one?" Sasha asked… This caused Nigel to raise an eyebrow inquisitively.

"You make barrettes?" He questioned suspiciously.

"Not the barrette part, but I do make glass flowers. It's my favorite hobby." Sasha replied looking at Nigel innocently enough as she failed to pick up on the suspicion in his voice.

"Really? Oh thank you Sasha!" Numbuh 3 said giving Sasha a big hug. Sasha blinked a few times in surprise at this. Then smiled warmly and hugged Kuki back… Finding that she was really enjoying herself being with these guys. Was this really what having friends was like? If so Sasha couldn't imagine anything better… Aside of course for having her mother back and being able to walk again, but those were a given… But right as Sasha was thinking things couldn't get any better-

_They suddenly got a lot worse…_

"Well if it isn't the KNDofusses." The eternal monotone voices of the Delightful Children rang through the groups ears as they approached the group's table. Sasha rolled her eyes; what the heck did they want…

"Buzz off Delightful Deviants, lunch is already hard enough to get down without having to look at your ugly faces." Nigel Uno growled finding that he was particularly not in the mood to deal with them today.

"Oh? We are just checking on our house guest… why are we not surprized to see you eating lunch with these losers." Almost instantly a hushed silence suddenly fell over the entire table. Every member of Sector V's jaw had dropped in a mix of both pure shock and horror. Sasha felt like she just got kicked in the guts by someone wearing steel toed boots.

"Wait… you're staying with the _Delightfuls_?" Numbuh 5 said, completely horrified at the thought of that.

"Trust me, it wasn't my idea." Sasha growled flatly rubbing her temples as she began to feel a headache starting to come on.

"Nor was it ours…" The Delightful's droned irritably. "But if Father wants to bring in this little crippled girl; who are we to argue with him?"

…_crippled… _

"What did you just call me?" Sasha snapped her sunglasses falling off revealing her glowing amber colored eyes for the first time. Her entire body was just radiating an aura of pure rage and hate at the Delightfuls.

"Oh? Did we offend- Aaahhhh!" Sasha suddenly grabbed the arms of the smallest boy of the group, Bruce, and almost instantly her fiery aura of blue flames erupted around her; successfully destroying Sector V's lunch table and sending the operatives back several feet.

"**Listen to me you little creep!"** Sasha roared with a voice so frightening it could've scared the devil himself. **"If you ever call me **_**crippled**_** again I swear I will tear you apart!"** But then a horrible sound unlike any other ripped through the air like a knife; silencing Sasha's rage…

…_screaming…_

And not just any type of screaming, these were the type of screams that you would only hear if someone was in pure agony! On total accident, Sasha's hands had ignited with the very same flames that had engulfed her body, and she had preceded to quite violently burn Bruce's arms up to the point he had 3rd degree burns! Immediately Sasha released her grip on the boy and he fell back into the arms of his fellow Delightful Children, they were screaming in their own right, but for once they were somewhat out of sync because they all weren't as badly injured as Bruce now was. They quickly gathered up Bruce and ran the heck out of that cafeteria.

That was when it hit Sasha. A smell so vile it almost made her want to throw up... The smell of burnt human flesh filled her nostrils and she realized something wet was on her hands… without a doubt it was blood… but when she looked at her hands something was _**very**_ wrong.

_Her hands were silhouetted…_

Her hands were now as black as night, with a strange blue aura around them. This scared the hell out Sasha and she tried to rub it off. But it didn't come off… she began to rub furiously on her clothes and scratch your skin to trying get the feeling of the blood, or this mysterious silhouette off of her body… It was scaring her, whatever was happening she didn't understand. She also didn't mean to hurt that boy! It was an accident! Sasha never wanted to hurt anyone! She had just wanted to scare them a bit… Things just got out of control. Sasha looked behind her, back at her newfound friends… Only to find that they were looking at her just as horrified as everyone else in the cafeteria was.

_She'd done it again…_

Tears welled up in Sasha's eyes and she wheeled her way out of the cafeteria as fast as she possibly could… Only to be met by several concerned teachers in the hallway; who proceeded to take her straight to the principal's office. All the while Sasha couldn't help but think one thing.

"_Could this get any worse?"_

_**She jinxed herself…**_

_The school called Father to come get Sasha…_

**Once again thank you all so much for the lovely reviews! ^_^ I hope you will all please continue to R&R and give me feedback. Especially if anyone seems a little bit OOC.**


	4. Memories Reawakened

**Chapter 4**

**Memories Reawakened**

_If things weren't already bad enough before…_

Now this is where things **Really** got bad... Father didn't like coming down to the school normally, so he was absolutely _**Livid**_ when he found out that not only did he have to come down to the school to pick up Sasha…on the day when he had a severe hangover… but also to be informed that one of his Delightful Children had to be rushed to the emergency room for severe burns that were caused by Sasha. When he arrived at the school; a fire so hot and so menacing was burning around him; it was like hell itself had erupted. He walked into the office only to be met by the sight of Sasha sitting outside of the principal's office… having been instructed that she was to go home… as she was now suspended for the rest of the week …

"**You little Brat!"** He snarled down at the ashamed young girl. **"How dare you burn one of my Delightful Children!"**

"I-It was an accident! I swear!" Sasha stuttered, only to find herself once again face to face with the fiery demon known as Father.

"**I don't care what I agreed too; you're outta here! I'm sending you right back from whence you came!"** Father roared angrily; his fire flaring wildly around him. He grabbed Sasha up roughly by the back of her sweatshirt and pulling her out of her wheelchair and more or less dragging her out to the waiting car… Completely leaving her wheelchair back in the school… And he commanded his chauffer or to drive the several hour drive back to Ezekiel Harth's office building…

**(Several hours later)**

The second the car pulled up in front of the office building Father stormed out, ordering his chauffeur to get Sasha inside… not caring how he was actually going to do this, seeing is how Sasha no longer had a wheelchair… He then stormed all the way up to Ezekiel's office, completely ignored the secretary _(who didn't really pay him much mind either)_ and stormed straight into Ezekiel office… The old man was alone… although he was currently hooked up to several medical machines that were now behind him… and surprisingly enough he was not all that surprised to see Father back so soon.

"Take your bratty granddaughter back!" Father fumed at that the old man. Ezekiel merely raised an eyebrow.

"Not even a whole day Benedict? That must be some sort of record…" The old man stated simply; completely unafraid of the fiery demon before him. "What did poor Sasha do that has made you so angry?"

"She burned one of my Delightful Children! The boy is in the hospital right now! Am I supposed to just overlook that?" Father snapped getting right up in Ezekiel's face… Again this didn't seem to faze the older man; in fact he did something both unexpected and a bit creepy…

_He laughed…_

"Ah, Sasha… If only you didn't have your idiot father's blood, you two wouldn't be so similar." Ezekiel said causing Father to recoil a bit in surprise.

"What the heck are you talking about you crazy old man?" Father demanded… suddenly not liking where this conversation was going.

"Doesn't this whole thing sound just a wee bit familiar to you Benedict?" Harth questioned.

"No… why would it?" Father questioned nervously, though some thought began buzzing in the back of his head… A memory long suppressed was fighting its way back to the surface… But Father fought it; he really didn't need old memories helping to make an already bad situation worse.

"If I recall correctly, you had a nasty little incident were you burned someone… Only you did it with malice whereas I'm willing to bet that Sasha did it on accident."

… _That did it…_

The memory broke through into Father's consciousness and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get it to stop playing back… it was one of the many memories from his youth… The memories he'd sooner wish to forget then have to relive again…

**(Benedicts Flashback) **

_He remembered it… It had happened back when he was 17 years old. While his father had long since been decommissioned by his brother Monty, the old man was still as evil as ever. And he couldn't have cared less about what was going on in Benedict's life… which wasn't really that much at the time._

_Except for tonight…_

_Tonight he and Mariah were going to the movies. They had been planning it all week and it was a movie that they both really wanted to see. Quite frankly Benedict loved going to the movies, especially with Mariah. It was the perfect way to relax and forget about his troubles. And Mariah… She was so beautiful. He often wondered how he got so lucky to have her as his friend…_

… _**She was like an angel…**_

_But on that night they had gone to the movies. They had gotten a little popcorn and some sodas and were sitting quietly watching the movie; just happy to be alone together… although it didn't take long for things to turn sour... Because sitting directly behind the pair were a few of their high school classmates… and some real creeps at that. Amongst them was one boy in particular named Nick Luxin who'd always seemed to have it out for Benedict; and for a very obvious reason..._

_He'd had a crush on Mariah…_

_And he had let her know it several times before, in fact Mariah had many admirers; as she was considered to be the most beautiful girl in the entire school… and even though she could have had her pick of any boy she wanted; she chose Benedict...the school's outcast. This especially bothered Luxin; as he was the captain of the football team and believed he was meant to be the one dating the schools beauty. _

_But Mariah did not want anything to do with him and she'd made that completely clear to him right from the beginning… as far as she was concerned Nick was a total jerk, and she just wanted him to leave her and Benedict alone… But he never seemed to get the message. Now on this particular night, both Benedict and Mariah were enjoying watching the movie when suddenly they found their heads being pelted with popcorn and other such snack foods by Nick and three of his football buddies… they were trying as hard as they possibly could to make the rest of the movie completely unenjoyable for both Mariah and Benedict._

_That was at least until when Mariah got fed up. From her purse she took out an item that she was particularly skilled with… a slingshot. She picked up a piece of an old, cruddy chocolate bar from the theaters floor, and fired it right into Nick's big open mouth when he was laughing at them… Not surprisingly he immediately choked on it because __**A)**__ He hadn't seen it coming, and __**B)**__ It was seriously gross... He ultimately had to leave the theater for the rest of the movie, trying to cough up the disgusting piece crud that had gone down his throat. This left Mariah and Benedict to enjoy the rest of the movie…_

_But when they were leaving they both got a nasty surprise... Nick was waiting outside for them along with his three friends. And they proceeded to pick a fight with Benedict, whose patience had already been worn thin due to the incident in the movie theater... not to mention that all his life Benedict put up with being pushed around… and he was even putting up with it then, at least for a little bit… until for the first time ever… _

_**Something inside of him snapped…**_

_He'd grabbed Nick around the throat and he ignited his entire body in searing hot flames… and he proceeded to burn the Jocks throat. Hell, he was in such a rage that he probably would've killed him had Mariah not grabbed him and somehow managed to pull him off of Nick. _

_From that day forward, Nick would never speak again… _

_His vocal cords had been completely destroyed by Benedict's fire. And it hadn't stopped there; the flames had also damaged his esophagus… leaving him reduced to having to get his nutrition through a tube for the rest of his life as well... after it had happened; this incident had really unnerved Benedict…_

_He didn't mean to do it…_

_It had been an accident, he just lost his temper. He'd just lost control! _

…_**it had just been an accident…**_

**(Back to the current story)**

"That was… an accident." Father muttered… suddenly finding that most of his accumulated rage was beginning to ebb away... and was being replaced by a feeling of depression. Ezekiel looked smugly at the now considerably calmer Father.

"Which is probably what happened with Sasha… let's face it Benedict; your children could make a saint turn violent. They probably were the ones who started the fight; Sasha just found a way to finish it… So what's the matter Benedict? Don't like it when the past comes back to haunt you?" Harth taunted, in turn getting an evil glare from Father…

"…No… grrr… fine… I'll take her back for the rest of the month." Father groaned in defeat. No matter how much he really wanted to get rid of Sasha, the more he looked at this situation; the more he found himself reliving that night… He hated those memories, memories that seemed to exist to bring him nothing but pain. If guilt was Harth's weapon of choice, than it certainly have an effect on Father… after all… how was Father supposed to punish Sasha for the same sin he himself had once committed?

"Just try not to mentally scar her any more than you already have." He said as Father turned on his heel and walked out of the office… now realizing that the score was currently Harth **2** Father **0**… as he walked toward his Town Car… his chauffer walked past him, carrying Sasha in his arms, since again Father had not brought her wheelchair with them.

"Stop!" Father said causing his chauffer to stop in his tracks. "Put the girl back in the car, she's coming back with us." Sasha blinked in surprise as she was placed back into the car…

"Why are you -?"

"Doesn't matter…" Father interrupted; then he grabbed Sasha by the collar of her sweatshirt and pulled her up to his eyelevel. "But if you _ever_ do something like this again I'll-"

"I never will!" Sasha whispered, tears streaming down her face. "I never wanted to hurt him! I don't ever want to hurt anybody!... I just… got so angry…" This caused Father to raise an eyebrow and released his grip on the girls' collar. He then turned away from the girl and began looking out the window, content to just sit in silence for the rest of the car ride home. Everything proceeded to get extremely quiet and awkward once again… As neither Father nor Sasha so much as uttered a peep until the car pulled up in the mansions driveway late that evening… Once there, Father again roughly grabbed up Sasha by the back of her sweatshirt and proceeded to carry her inside… like a cat carrying its kitten by the scruff of its neck, only much less cute… And once inside, Father sought to remedy the whole '_lack of an actual wheelchair'_ problem… of course his choice in a substitution was far from adequate…

…_An Office Chair…_

"…really?" Sasha muttered as Father dropped her into this sad excuse for a wheelchair replacement. Father glared at her.

"I could always just let you crawl on the floor; take your pick…" he warned icily.

_Sasha shut right up._

"Father- What is she still doing here?" The voices of the Delightful Children rang through the room like a shot in the dark. They were standing in the mansions doorway, having apparently returned from the hospital. Bruce's arms were heavily bandaged with gauze and medical tape, and there were several dark blotches seeping through the bandages… as his wounds were apparently still bleeding quite badly. Sasha cringed at this sight…

"I did say she was staying the month." Father said irritably as he set his sights on the Delightful's… an expression of pure horror spread across their faces like a flood.

"But Father! Look what she did!" The Delightful's yelled, gesturing to Bruce's heavily bandaged arms. But Father had suddenly gotten very menacing; fire bloomed around his body as he glared evilly down at the Delightful Children.

"Didn't I say last night that I didn't want you to fight with each other?" Father asked darkly and he began approaching the Delightful Children, making them back away from him in fear.

"But Father, we-"

"I said you were **NOT** to fight with each other! That's not exactly a hard direction to follow is it?" Father snapped hatefully at the now terrified Delightful Children. "And don't even so much as think about lying to me, I know you little brats were the ones who started the fight… Am I right?"

"…yes Father…" the Delightful's said suddenly becoming very interested in the floor.

"If that's the case then you deserve what you got!" He raged. "When I give you an order I expect you to obey it! Now go to bed! And **DO NOT** disobey me again!" The Delightful Children said nothing… they just walked slowly out of the room; careful to throw Sasha dirty looks as they walked past.

"You too… go to bed!" Father growled at Sasha, who glared back at him… but that was when a thought hit her, maybe she could-

Sasha created flames in her hands and then blasted flames behind her, successfully rocketing the office chair forward at an extremely high speed… a little faster than what Sasha had intended… judging by her screams… and by the fact that there was an extremely loud crashing sound, closely followed by the sound of something breaking… and Sasha's faint voice saying _'I'm ok'_…

_Father felt another migraine coming on… _

**(Sometime Later)**

By now Sasha had gotten into her pajamas and was now sitting upright in her bed. Even in spite of the late hour, she wasn't tired at all… if she wasn't dealing with nightmares, she was having chronic insomnia… and that was just the way it had been for the last six months; Sasha found she was actually getting used to it... much to her annoyance. Currently she was wrapping something very carefully in what looked like a raggedy brown cloth.

"Maybe… this will help… just a bit." She whispered as she held this strange item very carefully… but suddenly she heard a strange sound that was getting progressively louder… what was it? It sounded like some sort of vehicle? Sasha couldn't figure it out… and since she'd destroyed the office chair; **(Father had not given her another way to get around. He just picked her up and dropped her on her bed and left her to her own devices…)** she couldn't exactly move about to see what was going on. She could merely wonder what was going on and stare at the open window across from her. Since it was hot and muggy outside, and uncomfortably warm inside… Father had opened the window; he did this just so Sasha wouldn't end up breaking anything else trying to open the window herself…

…_Sasha nearly had a heart attack when Numbuh 1 suddenly appeared in her window…_

"It's clear, move!" Numbuh 1 yelled behind him and faster than Sasha could react, all the operatives of Sector V were in her room… and they were all armed.

"W-What's going on?" Sasha muttered; she was not so much scared as she was freaked out by all of this…

"What do you think? We're saving you girl!" Numbuh 5 said to Sasha; who blinked a few times completely confused.

"Saving me? From what?"

"Isn't obvious?" Nigel said darkly. "Father is the Arch-Nemesis of the Kids Next Door! He is extremely dangerous… as I'm sure you know. Once we get you out of here you can tell us about what he's done to you and our top scientists will work on getting you back to normal-"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Time out! What the heck do you mean by '_What he's done to me_?' the guy hasn't done anything to me!" Sasha said angrily suddenly not liking where this conversation was going. "And I'm not going anywhere!"

"What? Are you crazy?" Numbuh 2 exclaimed. Although honestly all of Sector V looked horrified at this.

"You lit up like a Roman-Candle in the middle of the cafeteria! Do you mean to tell us that Father didn't mutate you or something to make you able to do that?" Numbuh 5 questioned… Sasha's face fell in a mix of embarrassment and irritation.

"I've always been able to that… long before I ended up here. And I've only known this Father guy for about a day and a half… and I'll say it again he's done _nothing_ to me." Sasha said her eyes seeming to glow a little bit with her growing irritation.

"Then how are you able to do all that fire stuff?" Numbuh 4 demanded.

"If you figure that out, let me know… I just… can." Sasha said with a shrug.

"Ohhh! I love your stuffed lion!" Numbuh 3 said picking up Sasha's stuffed lion and giving it a hug… totally oblivious to what was really going on. Although her sudden outburst did cause Sasha's temper to calm down a bit with this distraction.

"That's Tico; I've had him since I was little." Sasha said… but then her eyes suddenly widened. "Oh, before I forget… I made this for you Kuki." She reached over to her nightstand, opened the drawer and pulled out a beautifully crafted pink Lotus Blossom and gave it to Numbuh 3.

"WOW!" Numbuh 3 said her eyes wide with a mix of shock and awe. It really was an extremely beautiful glass flower; it also clearly took Sasha quite a bit of time to make. "Thank you so much Sasha!"

"Getting back to the task at hand;" Nigel growled regaining everyone's attention. "Alright, so dismissing the whole fire thing for now… why are you refusing to come with us?" he asked suspiciously… this caused Sasha's eyes to narrow dangerously at him.

"Because… my Grandpa told me to stay here until he's finished renovating his house. And I won't disobey my Grandpa. He would never put me in danger or lie to me. So I can't leave." Sasha said softly… although her voice didn't fully hide her growing agitation at Numbuh 1.

"Your Grandfather could be setting you up to be '_Delightfullized_' do you want to end up like the Delightful Dorks?" Numbuh 1 hissed. For some reason he had taking quite a disliking to Sasha, and he couldn't help but let it show a little bit right now… could she not see that they were trying to help her?

Sasha brought up her fist and it instantly ignited with her blue flames… "Say something bad about my Grandpa again… and I'll make you regret it!" She threatened hatefully.

"Whoa calm down Sasha!" Numbuh 5 said getting between Sasha and Nigel. "Now… are you **absolutely** sure that you wanna stay here?"

"There are other options open you know." Hoagie commented, "We could just-"

"Really, thank you for the offer… Hoagie, Abby, Wally, Kuki… but, I can't… I just… can't." Sasha said sadly… then Wally asked the dumbest thing he could have possibly asked.

"What about your parents?" At this Sasha's eyes went wide… and for a full minute, she relived the hell of waking up in a hospital bed… her Grandfather crying next to her bed… and learning she was paralyzed… and her Mother was gone…

"I never had a Dad… and my Mother died in the accident that… paralyzed me…" Sasha said… trying to keep her voice from cracking

…_The room became dead silent…_

No one in Sector V knew how to react to this… even Nigel's jaw dropped. The sheer horror of what Sasha had just revealed to them… just destroyed anything they were going to say to her.

"If you really want to help me… please… just go away right now." Sasha said quickly wiping away the tears that were forming in her eyes.

"…lets go team." Nigel muttered… but his eyes wandered over to Sasha's nightstand and he took notice of Sasha's broken music box. "Wait… what's that?"

"None of your business…" Sasha growled… but she sighed and just rubbed her temples. "It's just my music box. "Now please just go… I'm sorry… but it's been a very bad day."

_Numbuh 1 couldn't explain it… but he had a feeling he'd seen that music box before._

"Wait, hold on a minute…" Numbuh 2 said quickly going out through the window… and after a few minutes he returned... carrying Sasha's folded up wheelchair. "I figured you might be wanting this back." He said placing the wheelchair next to Sasha's bed.

"Thank you Hoagie…" Sasha said giving him a weak smile. She was officially worn out; although she knew that she still had some things she had to do before the night was over.

"If you ever need us, you call us." Abby said as the rest of her team made their way back out through the window they entered through. "See you at school ok?"

"I'm suspended for the rest of this week… and Abby… thank you. You guys… it's really nice to know what having friends is like." Sasha said warmly, and Numbuh 5 just gave her a quick nod before disappearing out the window and rejoining her comrades.

_The only bad thing was that the sound of their aircraft taking off alerted Father to their presence…_

In a mere fraction of a second after Sector V's departure, Father slammed Sasha's door open. His demonic aura was already flaring around him. If Sasha had _anything_ to do with the Kids Next Door; that would be the _**final**_ straw!

"What is going on here?" Father seethed at Sasha… who seemed completely unfazed and unafraid of him.

"Nothing… just some kids from school came to give me back my wheelchair." Sasha said simply; quickly pointing to her now present wheelchair. Father blinked a few times in surprise.

"That's all?"

"Yep. They just gave it back to me and left." Sasha said softly, before she stretched and yawned a little bit. "I'm really tired now… so… goodnight… Father." Father's eyes narrowed at the young girl… but he said nothing. He just took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Then he just left the room… it was far too late to do anything else tonight.

_But Sasha was not really going to sleep yet… _

Oh no; she still had something very important to do before this night was over. She gulped nervously before once again picking up the cloth-wrapped item from beside her… just because she had to do this, didn't mean she wasn't extremely nervous about doing it at the same time. Slowly she managed to get back into her wheelchair… and after a few minutes of listening at the door to make sure that Father wasn't still wandering the mansion she opened her door and quickly wheeled her way down the hall…

…_and knocked on the Delightful Children's Bedroom Door…_

After a few long moments the Delightful Children managed to rouse themselves from their near coma-like state of sleep, get up, and open their door… of course Sasha wasn't there; she'd just barely managed to make it back to her own room before the Delightful's had opened their door… although she had left the wrapped up item on the floor directly in front of the Delightful Children's doorway.

"Now what is this all about?" They questioned grumpily, as they were still very tired… it hadn't been a good day at all for them. Since Bruce's arms were not functioning properly; it was the girl Delightful, Ashley, who picked up the parcel and they went back into their room… once inside they unwrapped the item… only they didn't suspect anything like what they got.

It was a large blue glass Lotus Blossom with four large leaves that were no doubt its base; it was also considerably larger than the one that Sasha had made for Numbuh 3. Although curiously enough there was a small red button right in its center. There was also a note taped to it…

_I'm truly sorry for what I did to you… _

_-Sasha_

The Delightful Children blinked a few times in shock. As they were certainly not used to people actually _apologizing_ to them; let alone receiving any type of gift… but their eyes narrowed darkly; it wasn't like they were actually going to _accept_ this apology. In fact they planned to smash this glass flower… but… first they figured they might as well find out what the button did… and they pressed it.

Inside of the large flower, one of Sasha's blue flames suddenly lit, causing the flower to light up with a bright, twinkling light. And then… the recorded sound from the GODSEND music box began to play…

…_That's when things really got weird…_

The Delightful's were suddenly crippled with searing headaches. It felt like thousands of volts of electricity were surging through them! Then all together a single sound resounded through their unified minds…the sound of something cracking… When they finally reopened their eyes; they weren't quite themselves… for some strange unknown reason-

_They had reverted back to being the members of Sector Z…_

Bruce, Ashley, Oogie, Lenny, and David could barely believe it! They were themselves again… well… at least for a little while. They all knew… there was no way this was permanent.

"H-How?" was all Ashley could ask…

"…I think it has something to do with this thing." Oogie whispered looking at the glass lotus blossom music box.

"Then grab it and let's get out of here!" Bruce demanded starting towards the door to their room… only he was stopped by David who pulled his overzealous leader back a little… before he stretched out his arm a little bit farther in the direction that Bruce had been going, only for his arm and the sleeve of his shirt to revert back to being '_Delightfulize_d'… Then as he pulled his arm back the Delightfulization wore off once again.

"It's not going to last long enough to do any good." David said solemnly. The recording of the music box was already beginning to slow down… they could feel that they weren't going to be free much longer. So with heavy hearts they laid side by side... Oogie and Lenny sat against the nearby wall next to each to each other; content to just hold hands once more. Bruce laid his head on Ashely's knees… although in spite of the terrible pain in his arms, he reached up to wipe away a tear from the taller girls eye… and lastly David, he sat in between both pairs… having been the only single member of Sector Z… but still he found the same silent joy as his friends at being himself once more… As the music box's song came to an end; the group drifted into a deep sleep, filled with dreams of what their lives once were…

_At least they were themselves again… even for just a little while…_

**Alright once again that's it for now, thank you all so much for the reviews! I think I got the Delightful's names right… if I didn't I will fix it immediately! Alright once PLZ R&R ^_^**


	5. Late Night Pancakes…

**Chapter 5**

**Late Night Pancakes…**

_This was one of the worst weeks Father ever had…_

It wasn't even so much that the week had actually been bad; it was just that he found himself trapped with a never ending migraine. Between his old memories being dredged up and all the usual annoying little things he had to deal with normally… things just seemed a lot worse than they actually were. Like tonight for example; it was Friday night; Saturday really… as it was about 3 o'clock in the morning and Father found that he could not get to sleep no matter how much he tossed and turned. So finally in this later hour he had officially given up on getting any sleep at all and just decided to get up and make himself some breakfast… let's face it; it was late and when sleep is no longer an option he found himself getting a major case of the munchies. So he sat upright and grabbed his robe…

…_yes…that robe…_

His stupid, ridiculous, yellow and pink fluffy robe... By unspoken law, all adults seemed to own at least one piece of stupid clothing… for most people this may be a stupid plaid shirt, a dorky hat, an ugly dress, or maybe even some god-awful pants. This robe was his… After he got up, he proceeded to walk through the pitch black halls of his mansion towards the kitchen… but halfway there a smell wafted up to his nose that got his attention. Was… something cooking?

This was strange; it smelled like something was cooking; only what he couldn't guess. And it wasn't possible that someone was cooking anyway! He was the only one in this house who even knew how to cook! Oh crud… did he leave the stove on? He quickened his pace… how stupid could he have possibly been to leave the stove on? He didn't even remember leaving the damn thing on. He entered the kitchen and the smell was very strong, yes something was definitely on, only he couldn't actually see what it was. All of the lights were off in the room… he began hastily feeling around the wall, looking for the light switch and after a few moments he found it and switched it on, illuminating the entire room…

And there was Sasha, sitting on the countertop next to the stove. A fork was in her hand and she was holding a plate full of pancakes; and next to her was a hot skillet where even more pancakes were cooking. The area around where she was sitting was cluttered with a few various cooking ingredients and directly next to her looked like some kind of book… And she was currently wearing a silken kimono bathrobe that was as black as night and was adorned with several elaborate, gold, Chinese dragons. There was one large dragon on the back, and smaller ones on each sleeve.

…_Long… Awkward… Silence…_

"What the hell are you doing?" Father fumed… really it seemed as though this girl existed solely to infuriate him! But Sasha didn't seem scared of Fathers obvious anger… in spite of the fact she had well over a thousand insults she could say about what he was wearing… instead she decided to take this conversation in a different direction.

"Want a pancake?" Sasha asked innocently… naturally this only succeeded in pissing Father off all the more.

"No I do not want a pancake!" Father snapped. "And what are you doing up at this hour?" He demanded… Sasha just took a bite of her pancakes.

"I was hungry… either you guys don't need to eat, or I haven't been invited to dinner. And since I don't like getting yelled at, I just wait until everyone's asleep and find something to eat then… it was either that or starve." Sasha said picking up another nearby plate and began putting some of the hot pancakes from the frying pan onto it with a spatula… Of course Father was mentally kicking himself for this one. Every night he cooked for the Delightful Children and he hadn't given Sasha a second thought… actually she had been so very quiet all throughout this week that he'd almost forgotten she was there.

"Grrr… alright fine, I'll remember to call you for dinner from now on." Father growled grumpily… really it was too early for _another_ headache. But then much to his surprise Sasha held out the plate full of piping hot pancakes covered with syrup… Father raised an inquisitive eyebrow at this.

"If you came down here… wearing that… it must be midnight munchies. So here…" Sasha commented as Father begrudgingly took the plate from her… What? He liked pancakes… and even in spite of Sasha having been the one to actually cook them… these pancakes smelled absolutely delicious. He sat down at the kitchen table and placed his pipe in the nearby ashtray before cautiously taking a bite of the pancakes…

"These are… surprisingly good." He commented honestly quite surprised at just how good they tasted. "Wait… what did you put in these?"

"Rainbow Munchies Cereal and cinnamon." Sasha said whilst taking another bite of her own pancakes. "Normally I'd only put one or the other in, but I figured I'd try something new…" Father just stared blankly at her…

"You cook?" He asked.

"Sometimes… I learned because… well… my Mom couldn't cook at all." Sasha said thinking back to all the meals her Mother used to make… and she couldn't help but shudder at the memories of some of those things. "One of the worst she ever made was Kelp and Broccoli Ravioli… I can still taste that disaster." Sasha said with a slight gag… Father couldn't resist a slight chuckle.

"I seem to recall that her Gelatin and Seaweed Casserole was particularly horrible." Oh the memories; it was true if there was one thing Mariah could never do, it was cook… As far as Benedict knew, she was the only person in the entire world who could literally burn water! And after Benedict's third time of ending up in the hospital for Food Poisoning… he'd just told Mariah to leave the cooking to him.

"You knew my Mom?"

…_**oopps…**_

"Um… yeah; I knew her." Father muttered dryly quickly putting another piece of pancake in his mouth and hoping this topic wouldn't continue… naturally he didn't get his wish.

"How did you know her?" Sasha inquired, her attitude seeming to have suddenly brightened up. Suddenly things seemed to make a little more sense to her… no wonder her Grandpa had put her with this man, if he was a friend of her Mothers he couldn't be _**all**_ bad… Even if he did seem hot tempered and mean… her Mother was a far better judge of character than that.

"We were friends… a long time ago. Then we just stopped talking." Father said quickly and much to his relief Sasha became quiet. The two just sat in silence from there; a tense silence but silence nonetheless. Although Father couldn't help but think… he didn't understand this girl. Here she was given probably some of the worst circumstances imaginable and she had to stay with _him_ of all people. And yet she still seemed unafraid and… almost… chipper in some strange way.

"…did… did you know my Dad?"

_...Father choked…_

Nothing that punching himself in the chest three or four times didn't fix, but still… he didn't see that one coming whatsoever… well… he couldn't just tell her the truth. So he quickly thought up a lie… not a very good one, but still… it would do.

"Um… nope; I never met him." Father lied as innocently as he could manage. Sasha sighed loudly and just shrugged.

"Well, there's another lead dead." She groaned in a defeated tone. "I'm not actually looking for him… I just want to know who was telling the truth; my Grandpa or my Mom. Since they've both told me such different things… it would be nice to know which one… to believe."

"What were the stories?" Father asked before he could stop himself. Sasha just closed her eyes… and after a few minutes a warm happy smile brightened her features.

"Mom always said he was really nice… she used to say that no matter how hard the day had been for her, he was always there to make her smile. And that he was brilliant, strong… oh, and he was also an amazing cook." Sasha said dreamily… beneath his silhouette Father smiled smugly, as his gigantic ego was really enjoying this… "But… then Grandpa said he was dead…"

…_well that killed his ego…_

"Mom got_ SOOO_ mad at Grandpa when he said that." Sasha said finally opening her amber eyes. "She said if he ever lied about him like that in front of me again he wouldn't be allowed to visit anymore… only whenever Mom wasn't around, Grandpa would say that my dad was a loser and a coward. And he would also say that he didn't deserve my Mother's love… he said that he never appreciated my Mom."

"So… which one do you believe?" Father questioned curiously… good god why was he even bothering to talk to this girl? She was just some stupid kid… and yet… he found that he couldn't help it. Hell, so far this girl was a better conversation than most of his villainous associates.

"Neither." Sasha said simply. Although this answer clearly surprised Father and he blinked a few times in confusion. "I want to determine for myself what he's like… if I ever meet him. I was only asking because you're kinda neutral in this. Chances are you'd have an unbiased view of him… but again, it's not really all that important." She finished and resuming eating her pancakes.

"You know I don't get you kid…" Father said as he finished his own pancakes, put his pipe back in his mouth and walked over to the sink and began doing the dishes. "You… you're different from just about every other snot nosed brat I've met. And that's **a lot** of brats. You don't whine, you're pretty quiet, you can take care of yourself, and… ultimately you're not as annoying. And that's even after you burned one of my Delightful Children."

"Well you're different from a lot of adults that I've met." Sasha stated simply. "You're the first person aside from me that I've met who can throw fire around. And all things considered… you're nowhere near as cruel or as scary as you were made out to be." At that Father looked at her like she had just grown a second head.

"Are you serious?" He questioned almost not believing what he just heard… Kids were frightened at the mere mention of his name; and here was a young child saying that he wasn't so scary? Ok, what was wrong with her brain?

"Pretty much." Sasha said with a quick nod. "You had the option of leaving me back with my Grandpa a few days ago but you didn't. You didn't need to give me a room as nice as the one you did, you could have just thrown me into a closet or the basement or something. And even right now, you're not yelling at me… and quite frankly if my Mom liked you, and that Nigel kid doesn't… you can't really be all that bad."

_Father was rendered completely speechless… _

"Wait… you don't like that Nigel Uno? I thought that most kids did…" Father questioned. A look of extreme aggravation immediately crossed Sasha's face.

"He seems like a jerk. And… to be honest, there is something about him that I just don't like." Sasha scowled darkly. Father just chuckled and shook his head.

"And I thought that you were strange before… next you're going to say that you don't like birthday cake, and that you like broccoli!" he said darkly… of course Sasha just looked at him strangely.

"Um… I _don't_ like birthday cake… And with my Mom's cooking; broccoli was often the _highlight_ of the meal…" Sasha said… getting a small chuckle out of Father's freaked out reaction.

"How can you **NOT** like birthday cake? What do you do for your birthday? Eat salad?"

"Hehe, no… actually for my Birthday my Mom and I would eat Smore's, and watch scary movies. Now _that_ is how to spend a birthday." Sasha said with a contented Cheshire grin.

"Ok, I can understand the smore's… they're delicious without question." Father agreed. "But still… I don't get the whole not liking cake bit."

"To each their own…" Sasha said simply before finishing up her pancakes. She then created her blazing blue flames and used them to clean up the utensils and plates she had used… ultimately sterilizing them until they were completely spotless. After which she attempted to get off the countertop by hopping off of it…

_She'd forgotten about her paralysis and ended up face planting on the floor._

"Ow… ok… now that… hurt." She groaned. And just as a sign of how bad her luck was, the thick book she had on the counter next to her proceeded to slip off the counter and land right on top of the fallen young girl.

"Well now that wasn't very smart now was it?" Father chuckled with a noticeable sarcastic tone in his voice as he looked down at Sasha.

"I… forgot about not being able to walk." Sasha said glumly from her crumpled position on the floor. "No chance you could bring my wheelchair back over here?"

"Where is it?" Father as he looked around the room for the said wheelchair. Although after a moment he found it at the other side of the kitchen. "How did it get over here?"

"It rolled away when I was getting on the counter." Sasha said tapping her fingers on the ground… but within a fraction of a second Sasha found herself levitated off the ground and set down back within her wheelchair. "Thank you." Naturally Father didn't respond to this, he just reached down and grabbed up Sasha's book… only to have several of its photos fall out. As this book was apparently Sasha's Photo-album.

"Now that you've had your snack, go back to… bed." Father had reached down to pick up the fallen photos only to glance at the top one… and it stopped him cold…

It was a photo of Mariah and judging by her posture, it looked like she was dancing. The photo was apparently set at night; Mariah was wearing a beautiful gossamer white dress and her smile would probably have been seen from over a mile away. But there was more to it than that… the moon was out in this picture, and positioned directly behind Mariah's head giving the impression of a silvery halo… and just to complete the picture; a pair of clouds were also positioned perfectly on either side of her… this seemed to give her a pair of radiant wings… and it almost looked like her entire frame was highlighted by a subtle blue highlight… the polar opposite to Fathers demonic silhouette.

…_she looked like an angel… _

Curious, Sasha moved her wheelchair closer to Father in order to see what had stopped him so suddenly. When she saw that it was that particular photo… a great sorrow filled her golden eyes and a small weak smile appeared on her face.

"Mom used to love to dance." She said softly. "She'd dance alone most times… occasionally she'd dance with one of her other friends, but she was always happiest when she'd dance alone... she once said it reminded her of the many times she was dancing with my dad… her favorite song to dance to was-"

"Moondance by Nightwish… but her favorite song in general was Ghost of a Rose by Blackmore's Night." Father finished, simultaneously pulling himself back to reality and handing Sasha her pictures back… Sasha cast him a long odd glance while she put all of the pictures back into the book… but eventually a small smile appeared on her face.

"Well… I'm going to bed. It was… nice talking to you… Goodnight." Sasha said while trying to stifle a yawn. While it was true she was starting to feel drowsy, Sasha knew all too well that she wasn't actually going to be getting any sleep tonight… her insomnia was still as constant as ever.

"…Goodnight…" Father said as Sasha made her way out of the room… which in itself was really an unexpectedly nice gesture from him. It got Sasha to give him a quick look of surprise as she made her way out of the kitchen. Father then proceeded to linger in the kitchen for a couple of minutes afterwards, randomly tiding up the kitchen.

…_What?_

…_it wasn't like he was warming up to the girl or anything…_

Only once he was sure that the kitchen was clean to his standards did Father leave the kitchen. But still much to his surprise, as he looked at the kitchens clock… he hadn't realized that two whole hours had passed and it was now 5 o'clock in the morning... Nonetheless the proceeded to go into his inner sanctum deep within the basement… where he could be alone with his thoughts. Although… it was a shame that his entire conversation with Sasha wasn't exactly… _private_.

_The Delightful Children had been eavesdropping…_

The ongoing conversation had roused them from their sleep, and they had proceeded towards their kitchen to find out just what was going on at such a late hour, much to their horror they had found Father and Sasha talking… they had hidden themselves in one of the hallways and just eavesdropped on the entire conversation; learning about Sasha's mother and other such things… but that wasn't what was really concerning them. What concerned them was that it looked like Father was starting too actually _like_ this new annoying girl.

"…No fair; we are supposed to be Fathers favorites…" The Delightful Children whispered darkly from their positions in the shadows. But after a few minutes… they each began to smile wickedly as a cruel plan began to form within their minds.

"We'll just have to do something about her, won't we?" They chuckled evilly as they retreated back into their room.

…_come Monday they were planning to deal with the 'Sasha' problem…_

**Ok, I know… Father was HORRIBLY out of character this chapter, please forgive me! As usual thank you for all of the wonderful reviews, and please continue to Read and Review! ^_^**


	6. Uncle Vlad

**Sorry about how long this chapter took to get up, I got a bit of writers block there for a bit ^^; oh well I'm back and it shouldn't take that long for me to update again! Thank you all for your patience and your wonderful reviews!**

**Chapter 6**

**Uncle Vlad**

_Returning to Gallagher Elementary on Monday was surprisingly less awkward than Sasha had originally expected it to be…_

Although the ride to the school with the Delightful Children was… just as uncomfortable as it had been before. Heck, today maybe even more so… as they were '_smiling'_ at her… which was not only awkward, but also succeeded in making her really quite suspicious as well. And yet in spite of their creepy, uncharacteristic, and just plain unnerving smiles; Sasha went through her day without too many uncomfortable situations. Although in the beginning she was constantly looking over her shoulder, half expecting to see the Delightful's standing behind her with a steak knife or something like that... But as the day progressed, slowly Sasha's nerves calmed down… and eventually she even managed to convince herself that she was just imagining things and that she was just being completely ridiculous… and for the rest of the day, nothing weird or unusual happened.

…_that was at least until the school day was ending… _

Sasha was at her locker putting away a few of her textbooks and a few other such things that she didn't need at the time, as she had gotten all of her homework done in Gym class… since she couldn't exactly participate in any of the games and all she could do was sit next to the bleachers and do her homework... So now she just wanted to finish putting her stuff in her locker and get going… she still didn't like the idea of those creeps getting to the car so much quicker than her; they might have the chauffer leave without her… and since she was just starting to get onto Fathers good side, she did not want to take a step backwards now.

But just as she finished putting her stuff away, her wheelchair was abruptly overturned and Sasha fell to the floor with a stuttered yelp. And before she could even react, her arms were abruptly grabbed and twisted behind her back and then were restrained by what felt like some sort of cord…

"What the-?" Sasha yelled trying desperately to get a glimpse of just who was attacking her.

"We meet again Miss Harth." The monotone voices of the Delightful Children rang through Sasha's ears. With a little effort Sasha managed to roll onto her side and glare hatefully back at those snobs. She immediately noticed that the blonde girl and brown haired girl were holding some kind of twine, and all five of them looked _extremely_ smug.

"…you know, right now I would like nothing more than to stuff you dorks into a kiln and fire it up to about 400 degrees…" Sasha growled angrily. She then summoned her flames to burn away her restraints…

…_but they didn't burn…_

"Do you like our new Fire-Proof cord Miss Harth? We find they are very useful!" The Delightful's sneered cruelly at Sasha… who gulped nervously at this new development. "Now we can move onto phase two of our ingenious plan."

"Wha-?" Sasha began only to be cut off as a piece of duct tape was slapped over her mouth and she was stuffed into her own locker!

"Let us guess, you are probably wondering why we are stuffing you into your own locker?" The Delightful Children asked smugly. "It's simple really; we are supposed to be Fathers favorites! And yet you come into our house and within a week you are getting pancakes early in the morning! Father **NEVER** lets us have pancakes! We always must have Bran Flakes! They are disgusting! But we always eat them to please Father! And we are tired of you upsetting the balance of normality!" They snapped angrily… but Sasha blinked a few times in a mix of both shock and anger.

"…_you're mad… because I had pancakes with your Father? Can we say insecure much?"_ Sasha thought bitterly as she watched those annoying brats fold up her wheelchair and stuff it in a nearby trashcan.

"Now we are going to tell Father that you have run away… figuratively speaking of course… maybe you joined those K-N-Doofusses; and tomorrow we'll work on just how we are going to mail you to Hong Kong." The Delightful Deviants said merrily as they clicked Sasha's lock back onto her locker just as the final bell rang signaling the end of school and a sea of kids ran past the lockers… all oblivious to Sasha's current predicament.

…_Oh Crud…_

**(…9 hours later…)**

…_Sasha was one step away from tears…_

Sasha normally prided herself on her toughness, her ability to handle herself and be brave in the face of oncoming trouble and hardship… but spending what felt like never-ending hour after hour trapped in an extremely confined space and being unable to use her arms was nearly more than even she could take… she had tried to burn her way out, but that had only succeeded in was destroying all of her newly acquired textbooks and ultimately welding the locker door closed… the only good thing to come of it was she melted the lock off the door; only with the said door being welded shut this didn't really help at all.

"_I'm not just going to let those brats get the better of me…"_ Sasha thought defiantly and an idea began to form in her mind… and after maneuvering her body as much as she could, she managed to face the locker door… and she created her flames to superheat the area around her and she began to bash her head into the door over and over again with all her might.

…_and after another hour Sasha somehow managed to free herself from her prison…_

And she tumbled out of her locker and landed on the floor **hard**. And although Sasha was unaware of it the entire left side of her body was covered in a silhouette with a blue outline… and the entire right side of her head was oozing globs of crimson blood. After a few moments Sasha managed to sit upright and take a look at our surroundings… The school was eerily quiet at night, and it was incredibly dark. A chill ran its way down her spine. As Sasha didn't really like the dark, although right now she had far more important things to deal with… Like getting free, and getting back to the Delightful Mansion.

"_But how? These cords can't be burned through… Maybe if I make a scene by lighting something on fire; wait… No I can't do that, that's wrong… arson is wrong…" _Sasha thought darkly to herself…

_A light bulb clicked on in her head…_

"_I'm __**so**__ going to get in trouble for this… But I think I don't have any other choice." _Sasha thought to herself as she proceeded to call her black and blue flames… And she lit the surrounding area on fire. She just kept creating more and more flames, trying to damage as much of an area as she could. Ultimately trying to be as _**bad**_ as she could be… Because when children are bad-

…_somebody has to punish them…_

All of the flames immediately seem to go out as though by some magical means and next it suddenly began to appear on the floor. A sudden eerie wind seemed to blow through the hallway… And Sasha breathed a small sigh of relief at what came next…

"'**Vor lighting a school on fire you have been very bad, and thus you have endured the stingy wrath of… Count Spankulot!"** The spank happy vampire announced as he magically seeming to appear in the middle of the darkened hallway… Of course realizing just how dark it was in this particular hallway and that he couldn't exactly see his intended victim… Caused him to become quiet for a moment; at least until one Sasha summoned her blue flames to illuminate the room.

"Vahaha! You are now mi- … vait a minute… little Sasha? Is vhat you?"

"…_No, I'm a Rainbow Monkey…"_ Sasha tried to say with her eyes… but in reality she just nodded quickly, still extremely grateful nonetheless that her actions had gained the vampire's attention; and in no time at all he'd gotten the cords off of Sasha's wrists and yanked the tape over her mouth off… which actually hurt like hell, but Sasha would deal with it. She was far too relieved at finally being free of her restraints to complain.

"Uh… thanks Uncle Vlad, I thought I was never going to get out of this one." Sasha said stretching her stiff arms and back as best she could.

"You know little Sasha, I still technically have to spank you…" The vampire pointed out darkly; of course Sasha just gave him a cold, sad, smile…

"Go right ahead… I won't feel it."

_Count Spankulot wanted to kick himself…_

"Sorry I forgot…" He muttered rubbing the back of his head. "But vhat are you doing here at vis hour? Let alone causing trouble? It's not like you!" Of course after a second the semi-clueless vampire realized that what was on the side of Sasha's face was **NOT** ketchup… "And vhat happened to your head?"

"It's a long story Uncle Vlad." Sasha said rubbing her sore wrists, by now her silhouette had dissipated, leaving Sasha completely unaware that she had created it again. "But… could you please give me a lift back to the place I'm staying at? The guy I'm staying with is going to be fuming mad enough as it is… also…my wheelchair is kinda in that trashcan over there."

"Of course…" Count Spankulot said quickly retrieving the young girl's wheelchair from said trashcan… although he brushed off a few bits of debris that had stuck to it before helping Sasha get back into it. "You can tell me vhat has taken place here. But first I'm going to get you a bandage for your head… and vould you mind if ve quickly got something to eat? Sorry but I missed lunch today…"

"You are the best Uncle V! And yeah I'm kinda hungry too… since I've been stuck in my locker all day…" Sasha said grinning up at the much taller vampire who surprisingly smiled warmly at the girl and _very_ gently pat her on the head a few times.

_Before the two of them disappeared in a puff of dark smoke…_

_**(Back at the Delightful Mansion)**_

_Okay Father was pissed…_

Right when he was starting to believe that the remainder of this month would go smoothly, what happens? His Delightful Children come home only to inform him that Sasha seemed to have gone off with those infernal Kids Next Door! Oh he was so mad that he could scream; but he'd get do that later… right now he was busy monitoring a new device that he'd secretly managed to get into Sector V's treehouse… it was so small that it was nearly impossible to see and it could be controlled to move into whatever room those little brats were in at the time; thus making it an almost perfect device to eavesdrop on his enemies. Although… in spite of Fathers boiling temper, **(That was in fact burning so ferociously that he didn't feel tired at all…)** he did find it somewhat curious that he couldn't seem to locate Sasha anywhere in Sector V's treehouse… if she had gone with them why was she not in their stupid treehouse? Did they drop her off somewhere else? Whatever it was… Father was too angry to care.

_Even though a little voice in the back of his head was whispering that something wasn't right with this situation…_

_**Ding Dong…**_

"Who the-" Father began quickly casting a glance at the clock revealing that it was almost 4:30 in the morning. "Who in their right mind is coming to bother me this early!" He snapped wrathfully as he got up from his sophisticated monitoring system and stormed through his house and yanked the front door open, angrily yelling "What?" In the process…

Sure enough there stood Count Spankulot, who seemed to be royally irritated for some reason; and directly beside him was Sasha who had quite a few bandages wrapped around her head and in some areas a few blots of red were continuing to seep through… and oddly enough Sasha was looking extremely irritated as well. Father blinked a few times in both surprise and confusion…

"What the heck is going on here?" Father demanded; his yellow eyes seeming to glow as his irritation mounted.

"It appears vhat your brats are being very naughty Father." Count Spankulot spat icily… oddly so. It actually surprised Father quite a bit. While he would admit, while he wasn't a big fan of the vampire he never believed that they were on bad terms… but the sheer chill that was in the Counts voice suddenly made him wonder about that…

"What is going on at this hour… and whose calling us naughty?" The clearly tired and agitated monotone voices of the Delightful Children resounded throughout the hallway… of course the second they saw that Sasha was back they paled… _"Uh oh."_

"You rancid little jerks!" Sasha snapped hatefully at the Delightful Children, her golden eyes blazing with an indescribable rage. "How dare you stuff me in my locker and plan to mail me to Guam!"

"It was Hong Kong!" The Delightful's corrected… only they quickly clapped their hands over their mouths, as they realized that they had just admitted to their lie in front of Father… only they began to become more and more intimidated by Sasha, whose silhouette was returning to once again to cloak the entire left side of her body and the flames that had once again encircled her body were emitting a wave of heat so hot that it felt like standing an inch away from a portal straight to hell.

"**Whatever!"** Sasha seethed. **"Now I'm going to teach you little idiots what happens when you mess with me!"** Sasha began as her flames seemed to get even bigger… but then they abruptly stopped; Sasha herself looked like she was thinking about something for a quick second…

"_Father may I?"_

Father, who had admittedly gotten a little carried away with wanting to see what was going to happen, was suddenly drawn back to reality at this. "What?"

"Is it okay that I teach them a lesson?" Sasha asked calmly… and her anger was so very obvious that acting calmer was obviously taking a terrific amount of effort on her part… but as soon as she asked this however, the Delightful Children looked at Father… their eyes full of fear and they were shaking their heads vigorously _'no._'

"…_go right ahead."_

"Father!" The Delightful Children exclaimed horrified at this… now Father eyes narrowed dangerously and his own fiery aura began to flare.

"**I told you not to fight twice now! And twice you've disobeyed me! The first time you got burned; and now… well you've earned whatever Sasha has decided to give you! You disobedient little brats!"** Father snapped angrily causing the Delightful Children to flinch from his booming voice… and they nervously re-focused their attention on Sasha… and an eerie grin began to settle on her features.

"**Dance…**" Sasha commanded…. Of course this got everyone to look at her strangely.

"Say what?" The Delightful's questioned almost not believing what they heard.

"I said… **DANCE**!" At this Sasha let loose a fireball at their feet… in fact she proceeded to surround them in searing hot blue flames. And what she meant by '_Dance'_ then became revealed. By super-heating the ground they were standing on the Delightful Children were reduced to hopping around in an embarrassingly silly manner in order to try and prevent their feet from scalding.

…_Sasha made them do this for well over an hour…_

And she would have made them do it for a lot longer too… in fact her original intent was for them to dance for the same length of time that she was trapped in that locker. But she stopped right when she was turning up the heat for the fifth time… the reason she stopped? It was because for a minute… she thought she saw something… for a single solitary moment; Sasha thought she saw those Delightful Brats… change… into similar, and yet totally different looking kids. The second that she saw that she stopped tormenting them altogether. But it was just a quick flash... as the second she dropped her flames they just looked like their normal rotten selves… just sobbing because of their sore feet. And neither Father nor Count Spankulot seemed to notice this mysterious change… making Sasha believe that she was just seeing things because she was overly tired… and luckily for the Delightful Deviants, Sasha had complete control over what she was doing. She knew just how to burn them, and for just how long as to avoid seriously injuring them. Now they'd be fine in about a day or two…

…_if only everyone was aware that there was now a 'Crack' in the Delightfulization's hold…_

"I'm done… **now get lost before I make you dance again**!" Sasha hissed, but again she was clearly exhausted and her voice sounded it. But not wanting to go through that again, the Delightful's screamed like babies and tried to run away in both fear and utter humiliation… but with sore feet that was much easier said than done… and not to mention that within a split second Count Spankulot had disappeared from his current position next to Father, and re-appeared in front of the agonized Delightful Children.

"**For stuffing a good little girl in a locker for nine hours straight, and for lying to your Father you have awakened the full wrath of Count Spankulot!"**

…_and he proceeded to spank each one of them particularly hard…_

But while Sasha would have loved to have watched those annoying little twerps get what was coming to them, she found herself far too tired to watch, and ultimately decided to just head back to her room.

"Goodnight Uncle Vlad." Sasha said as she wheeled past him… and she cast a sleepy glance back over her shoulder. "Goodnight Father…"

"Goodnight little Sasha, I hope to see you under better circumstances next time." Count Spankulot said finishing spanking Lenny and letting them all loose to run crying back to their bedroom… All Father did was nod to the tired young girl, and with that she proceeded to head back to her room… leaving the two adults to converse as they pleased. Only once he was sure that Sasha was gone did Count Spankulot stand up and look Father dead in the eye and say what was obviously going through both of their minds.

"Ve need to talk Father…" The Vampire said darkly… and Father proceeded to walk down one of the many twisting hallways of his manor, motioning for Count Spankulot to follow.

…_he'd rather they talked in the privacy of his sanctum…_

**(In Fathers Private Sanctum)**

"You're her uncle?" Father questioned darkly as he poured two glasses of expensive brandy and handed one of these glasses to the vampire that currently stood before him.

"A non-related uncle… She just started calling me uncle a few years ago and I've never minded. And yes my name really is Vlad… vell Vladimir actually." Count Spankulot commented taking a brief sip of the brandy and watching Father very warily as he sat down behind his desk… "Although I'm sure you can imagine vhat I was very surprised vhen Sasha said she vas staying here of all places."

"It's only temporary." Father grumbled swirling the brandy in the glass… and finding it less appealing than just a minute ago. "How exactly do you know the girl?"

"I vas friends vith her mother, Mariah." Spankulot answered simply… careful to make a note of the way Father seemed to tense up at this. "To tell the truth, Mariah vas one of the sweetest vomen vhat I have ever met... but you already know vhat, don't you Father? Considering you're Sasha's real Father and all."

"**How do you know that?"**Father barked angrily, accidentally creating a few flames around his body and causing the vampire to shield his eyes from both the light and the heat that the flames emitted.

"I… I vas very fond of Mariah. And while ve vere friends, I vanted… to be more than friends… but she said her heart only belonged to Sasha's father. A man named Benedict Uno… I knew it vas you, but I said nothing…" The Count muttered darkly, successfully stopping Father cold and causing him to groan and rub his eyes.

"…So how many of the other villains know about this?" Father growled, as without a doubt one thing that all of his fellow villains liked to do was gossip… and Count Spankulot was one of the ones who was always liked to spread the newest gossip around as soon as he heard anything of interest… like an annoying vampiric parrot with a mouth that never shut up.

"I may like to gossip Father… but unlike Toilenator, I can also keep a secret. And I never told a soul, vhether that soul was living or undead." Spankulot said with a shrug, this was actually quite surprising to Father… he didn't even really know what to say now.

"Um… thanks?" Was pretty much all he could come up with… but Spankulot seemed completely oblivious to this, he only shook his head and sighed sadly.

"Do not thank me for my silence… it vas too depressing to spread around. The entire thing is very sad; seeing how broken your life is and you can't seem to see it." He said bitterly. But this got Father to look at him like he had just gone crazy.

"What do you mean my life is broken? My life is just fine!" Father snapped irritably.

"But are you happy?"

"What? I just said my life is fine!"

"You're not answering my question… are you happy?"

And for once… Father found a question that he could not answer. Even though every part of his brain was pretty much screaming at him to lie and say that he was indeed as happy as a clam. Only much to his complete annoyance, his heart seemed to be getting in the way of his lie. In fact his heart had been annoyingly active lately… causing him to feel pangs of guilt, and sorrow, the likes of which he never thought he'd be forced to feel again. He'd abandoned his heart long ago… so why? Why now were these things starting to bother him? Why was the annoying voice of his conscious starting to interrupt his devious planning of ways to finally destroy the Kids Next Door? Why did it now seem that old memories were all that he could think of? Memories, both good and bad… they had no place now; so why is it that they would give him no peace? They were the memories of someone else, another man. A pathetically weak man, and a lonely child… they were not him anymore. He was not lonely, and he certainly was not weak.

_His heart began to whisper that he was lying…_

"I didn't think so." Spankulot muttered as he noticed the look of indecision settle within Fathers eyes. "Take advice from me Father… don't throw away vhat might be the most important thing you have left in your life."

"And how did you get so smart? Tell me you stupid vampire, what gives you the insight to judge me?" Father demanded hotly, unintentionally boiling the brandy in his glass until it evaporated.

"Because I made the same mistake… vith my own child." Count Spankulot stated emotionlessly.

…_a pin could be heard dropping from a mile away…_

"You…?" That was all Father could say. Nothing else could really match this bombshell that the vampire had just revealed to him.

"Is it so hard to imagine? Vhat I once had a family? Vell I did… only it vas a very long time ago. Over a century ago… back in Transylvania. I had a vife, and a child." The Count said ominously, his voice sounded like it was full of pain and cracking a bit.

"What happened to them?" Father couldn't resist asking.

"I'm a vampire, my vife wasn't; she grew old and passed away. That's the real trouble with being a vampire, ve're destined to outlive all of our friends… and… My daughter… ve had an argument many years ago and… ve haven't spoken since. My daughter is a vampire; the normal _biting_ kind, so I know vhat she's still alive. But vhere she is I have no idea… do you know vhat I vould give to see her once more? To tell her how sorry I am… it's a sad, lonely, life I have Father and I vouldn't vish it on anyone… so I'm varning you, don't let it happen to you. You have a chance… a chance I vould **die** for. Don't vaste it…"

"…_and you still wanted my Mariah?" _

Father could have just slapped himself for saying that… what was he thinking? Although strangely enough this got a laugh from the depressed looking spank happy vampire.

"Maybe it vas vrong of me to say I vanted to be more than friends vith Mariah. In my heart no one can ever replace my vife. But… vhen I vas friends' vith Mariah, for just a little bit… I felt like I had a family again." He said mustering a small smile… "Mariah even helped me vith the book I'm vriting."

"You're what?"

"Vriting a book. I vrite as a hobby… but my English and grammar isn't that good; Mariah vas an English teacher and helped me vith it. It's coming out next month, vould you like me to give you a signed copy?" Spankulot said, his mood suddenly seeming to improve a great deal.

"Um… no thanks; I'll just… uh… get it when it comes out." Father said… although honestly he wasn't sure what was disturbing him more; this conversation, or the fact that Count Spankulot actually had written a book… but suddenly a thought entered Fathers head, and for reasons unknown it suddenly began to worry him.

"Has Ezekiel Harth asked you to be Sasha's legal guardian?" At this, the look on Count Spankulot's face became much calmer… almost emotionless.

"He asked me three days ago… I turned him down. Transylvania has changed in recent years, it's less hospitable. And I vouldn't be a good guardian for her… in her condition." The vampire said flatly… and Father breathed a sigh of relief… he couldn't figure it out, but the thought of Sasha living with the crazy vampire bugged him… and it was irritating.

"The old man is getting desperate." Spankulot continued. "He has… made many enemies over his life that may seek to harm little Sasha once he passes. And then there is the fact that Sasha herself vill be inheriting a massive fortune. Vhich makes finding a home for her, vhere the people vill not be stealing her money… difficult."

"Any ideas who he might be sticking her with?" Father questioned.

"No… vhy so curious Father? Could it be that you like having little Sasha around?" The vampire asked slyly.

"**No**!" Father hissed creating a small amount of flames around his body in an intimidating manner. **"I just want to know how long before the kid gets out of my hair!"**

"Sorry can't help you there." Spankulot said with a dry chuckle. "And if you excuse me Father, I think I best be going now… dawn is approaching, and I vant to be home before sunrise."

"Yes… you go do that." Father muttered suddenly feeling as though he had just been hit by a freight train of exhaustion. And in poof of black smoke Count Spankulot was gone…

…_for three seconds anyway…_

"But before I forget!" The Count said hastily reappearing in Fathers Sanctum. "I vanted to give you this." He said handing Father a folded up flier for an Antiques Show.

"Oh, an Antiques Show… this weekend." Father commented in spite of his exhaustion. He loved antique shows, and attended them whenever he could.

"Exactly vhy I figured I vould give you the flier…" Spankulot said and suddenly yawned loudly and stretched his arms out. "And now… I'm going to bed… Good morning Father." And at this he disappeared for good back to his own home…

"Crazy backwards vampire." Father commented knowing that '_Good morn_ing' to Spankulot was the same as '_Good night'_ to any other sane individual.

But now that Father was alone once more… he found much to his dismay that the spank happy vampire's words were indeed lingering in is mind. Even though he would normally blow off the advice that anyone would try to give him in any sort of situation; Spankulot's words had stirred something inside of him…something that he was starting to have trouble believing was untrue.

"Do I actually care about that girl? No… why would I? She's just like every other snot nosed brat in the world…" He muttered out loud to himself, trying to reassure himself that that was the truth…

…_But she's __**my**__ snot nosed brat…_

"**Damn it!" **He roared creating another wave of fire out of his aggravation. And at this he sighed in defeat… it was just too late to be thinking about this stuff right now. He needed to get some rest or else he might really start to lose it. He stood up, his back cracking loudly in the process and he headed back upstairs and towards his bedroom… although as he walked quietly through the twisting corridors of his mansion, a single thought echoed from deep within his mind… a thought he was far too tired to neither protest, nor fight…

"_Would it be really such a bad thing… if I wanted to keep Sasha around?" _

…_He'd think about it some more after he got some much needed rest…_

**And that's it for this chapter folks, and I'm going to apologize right now. I can't do Transylvanian accents so… yeah… sorry… as for Count Spankulot's name being Vlad; I couldn't think of anything better, and I know he too was horrifically out of character and I'm sorry about that…^^; As usual please continue to Read and Review!**


	7. The Antiques Show pt 1

**Chapter 7**

**The Antiques Show pt.1**

…_The weekend felt like it took forever to get there…_

Well it did, although thankfully the remainder of the week did go by without another incident between Sasha and the Delightful Children. In fact the Delightful's had made an extra effort to stay out of Fathers and Sasha's way that week. No doubt in fear that he was still mad at them for their little attempt at getting rid of Sasha… and they **did not** want Sasha to get angry and make them dance again… But now it was Saturday afternoon and the weather was great; the sun was shining warmly and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Currently Father sat in the back of his town car, along with the Delightful Children, and Sasha. All were headed to the Antique Fair that Count Spankulot had informed him of during his visit. Thankfully it wasn't a very long drive from his home… just about an hour; which compared to the other trips that Father had made back and forth to Ezekiel Harth's office in the earlier weeks, this was nothing at all. And after a nice quiet drive, the car pulled up to the location that the Antique Fair was being held at. Father got out of the car first, closely followed by the Delightful's, and then sure enough after his chauffer finished helping Sasha with her wheelchair the girl joined up with them at the Fair's entranceway.

"Alright I'm only going to say this once so you all better listen well." Father said while fiddling with his pipe a bit. "We're going to split up and meet up in two hours here at the entrance, at that time we'll have lunch. So don't be late! Also… I'm giving you each fifty dollars and not a dime more, so don't buy any junk." He said reaching into his wallet and pulling out two 50 dollar bills; he gave one to Sasha and the other to the Delightfuls…

"Thank you." Sasha said and quickly she put the fifty dollar bill into her pants pocket…

"Yes, thank you Father." The Delightfuls' said while casting Sasha a very dark look, almost as though they were mad that they didn't get to thank Father first.

…_At that they all proceeded to go their separate ways… _

The Fair was huge, and there were well over a hundred different dealers. There were also several stands that were selling a few different types of snack foods and a few other random things here and there. Sasha smiled as she looked over all of the different items at one of the dealers' stalls. This particular dealer was selling all sorts of old antique bottles and other small little things. While none of it was really worth buying, Sasha was still very interested in seeing all of these interesting little items. She liked looking at antiques, and this day was going nice and smooth; and with how rotten her luck had been lately, she was do for something to finally due for something to go right… so she was determined that nothing was going to ruin this day for her.

"What are you doing here Sasha?" Nigel Uno said from directly behind Sasha, startling her quite a bit… she then groaned loudly… as once again she apparently had jinxed herself.

"I'm here with Father and the Delightfuls, but I don't know where either of them are at right now." Sasha said turning around to face Nigel. "Now it's only fair you answer the same question… what are you doing here Nigel?"

"I'm… here with my Dad." Nigel answered honestly. "He likes going to these things and he wanted me to come with him this time."

"They are fun aren't they?" Sasha said warmly glancing around once more at all the different things… Numbuh 1 scoffed at her in disbelief.

"You like looking at some cruddy old junk?" Nigel questioned, successfully getting another dark glare from Sasha.

"I do… I've always liked looking at old things; I think it's all really interesting. You know Nigel, you should try not putting down views other than your own… not only is it rude, and it's _very_ irritating." Sasha said coldly to Numbuh 1… this caused him to blink a few times in surprise.

"I'm not putting your views down… its' just…" At this Numbuh 1 sighed very deeply and rubbed his temples. "Look… maybe I have been a little-"

"Judgmental? Rude? Cold? Impolite? An outright jerk?" Sasha offered. Now this got Nigel to glare angrily at her…

"I was going to say hasty… perhaps I've been a bit… hasty… in judging you." He said, and it sounded like it was really taking a lot out of him to say this. Of course Sasha had a feeling he was the kind of person who had a hard time admitting he was wrong. "And… I wanted… to apologize for that. Quite frankly if my friends like you as much as they do; you… can't be a bad person. So… I'm sorry for judging you."

"…That must have taken a lot to say." Sasha commented, looking at Numbuh 1 with an unreadable emotion written on her face. Nigel's face fell…

"It did…"

"…well if you can be a big enough person to say you are sorry, I can accept your apology." Sasha said as a small smile made its way onto her face. "So… are we friends then?"

"Yeah… I think so." Nigel said nodding his head. Even though there was still something about Sasha he felt was off, and even though she was staying with Father, and she could throw fire around… she'd still been pretty nice to his friends; and she had only got hostile towards him after he had insulted her. Numbuh 5 had pretty much pounded this into his head the previous night. Abby always was the voice of reason… and no matter how many ways he folded it, she was right. He'd planned on apologizing to Sasha on Monday, but since she was here now he thought he might as well do it now.

"Nigel? Ah, there you are my boy, I was wondering where you ran off too." The voice of Monty Uno said catching both kids attention as he approached the two. He looked from Nigel to Sasha curiously. "So who's your little friend here son?"

"Dad this is Sasha," Nigel said introducing Sasha to his father. Only immediately Monty's eyebrows rose in surprise and he smiled warmly down at the young girl.

"So you must be Sasha Harth. It's a real pleasure to finally meet you." Monty said warmly looking down at Sasha and offered her a hand, which Sasha shook but she looked a bit confused.

"It's nice to meet you to Mr. Uno; but… how do you know about me?" Sasha questioned a quite confused about all this. Nigel also looked up at his father with the same question written on his face as well.

"Oh, well… your Grandfather and I had a little chat a few days ago… you see I was an old friend of your Mother. And I do offer you my deepest sympathy for her passing. She was a fine woman; and a good friend." Monty said looking down at Sasha who nodded a few times. Drawn back to thinking about her Mothers passing again. "Say, if you're here I guess that means Ben is here also. Do you know where he is off hand?"

"Who's Ben?" Sasha questioned, honestly quite confused.

"Uh, we don't know where he is Dad. But he is around here… somewhere." Nigel said with a slightly dark tone hidden in his voice. Monty seemed content with this.

"Alrighty then, why don't you kids go and look around this fair together? I've seen a few things I would like to get and I do want to try and find Ben; now have fun you two! And stay out of trouble." Monty said patting his son on the head quickly before walking off deeper into the fair.

"Your Dad seems really nice." Sasha commented. "But… who is Ben?"

"He is... And Ben is the name of my Uncle… aka Father; aka the man you're currently staying with." Nigel said coldly but then his expression became slightly more cheerful. "But on another subject, as long as we're both here… do you wanna stay together?" He asked and Sasha then grinned warmly at this.

"Only if you promise to try and have some fun." Sasha chuckled before the two of them wandered deeper into the fair. And after a while Nigel, much to his complete surprise was found to be proven wrong…

…_He was actually having a pretty good time with Sasha…_

She seemed to know a lot about virtually everything they saw. From old paintings, to medieval weapons, to varying gizmos and gadgets that he would have just assumed to have been plain old junk… in all honesty he was completely impressed with just how much she knew. He had memorized virtually everything there was about the KND, and he could name every single piece of 2x4 technology that was in his tree house… but he didn't know all that much about a lot of other things; he started to think about inviting Sasha into the Kids Next Door, as her impressive knowledge on all these different subjects could prove to be invaluable…

…_it would also be invaluable to have an agent inside of Fathers mansion…_

"Oh wow! Check this out!" Sasha said as she suddenly stopped abruptly in front of a particularly large stall of varying antiques, although it did have an extremely large display of antique books.

"What? They're just books… we see enough of them at School." Nigel said… but Sasha looked at him like he was insane.

"Just books? What I've found right here isn't just any old book Nigel. It's a First Edition copy of Alice in Wonderland! Do you have any idea how rare this is?" Sasha said carefully leafing through the books pages.

"What's the big deal? Everybody knows that story… how valuable can that book be?" Nigel grumbled.

"It's worth well over 20 thousand bucks…" Sasha commented dryly. And she couldn't help but chuckle at the look of utter disbelief that quickly filled the boy's face.

"T-Twenty… Thousand?" he choked out in disbelief.

"Yep." Sasha said as she put the valuable book down. "My Grandpa told me all about this stuff. Especially since my family has one of those rare copies… well… sorta…"

"What do you mean sorta?" Nigel said, still in a bit of shock at this new information.

"I mean I don't know if my family's copy is technically considered First Edition. It's not a copy, it's completely handwritten… and there are a lot more pictures, and they're all hand drawn. I don't know if it's just a worthless copy or what… but it belonged to my Grandma, who ironically was named Alice. I'm named after her you know." Sasha explained… Nigel just raised an eyebrow.

"You're named after her?" He questioned skeptically… Sasha slapped her forehead.

"It's my middle name… my full name is Sasha Alice Harth." She said flatly. "And I'm sorry this isn't all that interesting to you Nigel, it's just… this kind of stuff brings back a lot of happy memories for me."

"You know Sasha… you talk like you're an adult, but your only a kid. Why do you do that?" Numbuh 1 couldn't help but ask… and Sasha's face fell and a terrible sorrow began to write itself deep within her amber eyes.

"I don't feel like a kid Nigel… I feel old... I'm turning ten in three months but I already feel like I'm way past twenty. Not to mention that for most of my life I've had adults as friends rather than kids my own age… and…" Sasha suddenly became very quiet, and what she said next was barely louder than a whisper. "A lot of the time… I feel… unwanted and alone."

"But you're not unwanted." Nigel protested putting a hand supportively on Sasha's shoulder. "You have friends now! And you're not alone!" This did get a small smile from Sasha… but that smile was hollow, Nigel could see that as clear as day.

"I guess I'm just broken… both figuratively and literally." The girl said darkly as she turned away from Nigel… and after a moment she was able to once again put on a brave face and both she and Nigel continued looking over the rest of the items that were on display at this particular stall.

"Ready to move onto the next one?" Numbuh 1 asked hoping that he might find a way to restore some of Sasha's happiness… even if all he restored was Sasha's illusion of happiness.

"Yeah lets-…go… hang on for a minute." Sasha said as something suddenly caught her eye. Directly behind the main counter of the stall was what looked like some sort of bizarre stuffed animal. Nigel immediately noticed the direction of Sasha's gaze and he looked to see what exactly it was she was looking at.

_**...He determined that it may very well have been the only stuffed animal in the world that Numbuh 3 wouldn't want…**_

It looked like it could have been some sort of dragon or at least that was the only thing it could be compared too... It was mostly green in color and protruding from its upper jaw were an oversized pair of fangs and on its head were a pair of thick antenna that went backwards over its shoulders. And it had a pair of pupil-less, shining gold colored eyes that were made out of some unknown material. It was clearly made to stand upright rather than on all fours like most dragons were depicted; and it apparently had three long slender fingers and three claws on its feet… But here's where it got weird, attached to the doll's chest was what looked like a miniature furnace; and while the furnace no doubt fake, it was still clearly made with real metal. Its long tail also had sections that were also made of metal rather than fabric. And then lastly its large grey colored wings were outlined with metal as well… it was also pretty big for a stuffed animal as well, as it was roughly about the same size as Numbuh 4.

…_It looked oddly menacing for a stuffed animal…_

But Sasha apparently didn't seem to think so. She picked it up and looked it over and then a small smile found its way onto her face. She moved over to where the stalls owner sat reading a newspaper and managed to get the woman's attention.

"Excuse me ma'am, I'd like to buy this… how much is it?" This not only surprised Numbuh 1, but the stall owner as well.

"You really want that old thing?" The woman, an older woman who was probably in her late sixties and she dressed in what looked like very elegant gothic style clothes. "I must have had that thing for 30 years… I picked it up at a rummage sale thinking it was unique… only it creeped me out so much that I just stuffed it in a box and tried to forget about it. Are you sure that you want it hon?"

"Absolutely." Sasha said with a smile…

"Why would you want that God-Awful thing Sasha?" Nigel questioned… and he would swear that the thing's eyes narrowed at him as he said that.

"Because… I just do. I think he's absolutely adorable!" Sasha muttered hugging this strange stuffed animal close. "And quite frankly he looks about as broken as I feel… that can also have something to do with it. And no one should be broken and alone… not even a stuffed animal."

"Well… if you really want it, you can have it for ten dollars. How's that?" The woman said with a warm smile, her heart suddenly going out to this poor child. Sasha happily pulled out the fifty she had been given earlier and handed it to this lady who gave her two twenties in change. "Now you take care dearies."

"We will." Nigel and Sasha said as they headed off deeper into the fair. Sasha carefully placed her newly acquired stuffed animal next to her in her wheelchair… it now was comfortably in between both Sasha and Nigel, and apparently it was still glaring at Nigel… successfully making the head of Sector V _very_ uncomfortable.

"So what are we going to do now?" Nigel questioned as he reached over and tried to point the stuffed animals head away from him so it would stop creeping him out… of course no sooner did he turn its head to face in another direction did its head turn right back at him… Sasha failed to notice this…

"Well I saw a sign that down this way they have a display of weapons, how 'bout we go see that?" Sasha inquired.

"Well that sounds interesting," Nigel commented. "Maybe we'll see some antique 2x4 technology; now that would be interesting!" At this Sasha rolled her eyes.

"Can't you think of anything else?" Sasha questioned glumly. "And I don't think they'd actually have any of that anyway… but they might have bows and arrows, maybe even a crossbow or two. Hehehe, maybe they'll even let me try one."

"You know how to use an Archers bow and arrow?" Nigel inquired suddenly rather interested. Sasha merely nodded.

"Yep, when I was little my mom taught me how to use a slingshot… and then my Grandpa got an idea and one day he took me to an Archery range… to this day there isn't a target that I can't hit." The girl declared proudly. Of course this got Nigel thinking.

"Hmm… maybe Numbuh 2 can make you an Archers bow out of 2x4 technology." He muttered thoughtfully. But he failed to notice the evil smile slowly spreading across Sasha's face.

"You know Nigel there was one other thing that people couldn't beat me in..." She said playfully before she started wheeling away from Nigel very quickly. "Last one to the weapons is a rotten egg!"

"Hey you got a head start!" Nigel yelled playfully back running after her.

"There was no one I couldn't out run before, and no one I can't beat now!" Sasha laughed… indeed for once it would certainly seem that nothing was going to spoil her day…

…_she just prayed with all of her heart that it would stay that way…_

**Did I forget to mention that I am a **_**HUGE**_** fan of American Mcgee's Alice? Now to those who don't know what it is, it's a game about a Nightmarish version of Wonderland and Alice desperately trying to fix both Wonderland and her sanity as well… blah blah blah, well the dragon plush that Sasha just got is based off the Jabberwock; and it will have some greater significance later on in the story, but don't worry you don't need to know the game at all in order to understand anything else. OK? And as always thank you for the wonderful reviews and please continue to Read and Review! ^_^ **


	8. The Antiques Show pt 2

**Chapter 8**

**The Antiques Show pt. 2**

_Father was actually enjoying himself._

Well he certainly thought it was about time. With all the hell he had endured lately he believed that he had certainly earned a reprieve from the non-stop misery he had been dealing with as of late… and this antique show was an answer to his prayers. Not that he was actually buying a lot of things; he just wanted to let his mind wander onto topics other than what he was most currently dealing with… as he had been forced to come to terms with something that he would rather not be forced to think about now...

"Ben!" The all too familiar voice of Monty Uno cut through the air like a white hot knife through butter. "Ben! There you are!" And sure enough within a few seconds his older brother was at his side… smiling his warm and clueless grin at the silhouetted villain.

…_it was official… God hated him…_

"I've been looking for you Ben; we need to talk you know… and you haven't been returning my phone calls." Monty said his smile fading a bit and Fathers eyes narrowed hatefully at his older brother.

"We have nothing to talk about Monty." Father said and he attempted to walk away from his brother, only much to his dismay Monty put a hand on his shoulder preventing him from getting away… and no matter how hard he tried, he could never find the strength to burn his brother… so as long as he had a hold of him he was stuck here. So with a bitter sigh he turned around to face Monty figuring it might just be better to get this over with so he could get on with his day. For some odd reason he thought that he had been giving into the demands of others more so than usual… which he did find odd… although it was not as though he could do about it at this precise moment. "Alright fine… what do you want to talk about?"

"Well, gee Ben, I-I barely know where to start!" Monty started finding the cold emotionless look in his brothers glowing amber eyes quite unnerving. "Well, to start with there is Pappy's funeral that is coming up in a few weeks…"

"Great… tell me all about it, I'm not going." Father stated flatly, successfully earning a look of horror from his brother.

"Why not Ben? All your life you tried so hard to be a good son…and you were… so why-"

"Why am I not going? Simple Monty… because I **HATE **our Father. I hated the way he treated us when we were kids! I hated the way that he pretended all my life that I wasn't there! I hated that no matter what I did for that man he never so much as thanked me! And what I hate most of all is… what he turned me into!" Father seethed wrathfully at Monty, creating a minimum amount of flames around his shoulders and hands… but this didn't seem to intimidate Monty, who suddenly looked rather irritated.

"Pappy didn't turn you into the person you've become Ben… you did that all on your own. I often wonder what happened to the boy that was once my brother? What happened to that sweet, kind, harmless boy who wouldn't hurt a fly? You did turn into something ugly Ben, but don't blame Pappy for it… it was all your own doing." Monty said in an ominous and cold tone. Although his words set a blazing rage to fill Fathers heart.

"I don't need to hear this!" Father hissed and he turned on his heel and began walking away.

"Are you just going to walk away like this Ben?" Monty demanded, his eyes narrowing angrily.

"Let's see I'm walking away right now… so yes!" Father growled back at his irritating older brother.

"What about your daughter Ben? Are you just going to walk away from her too?" Monty said causing Father to freeze in his tracks as a silent terror suddenly gripped him down to his very soul.

"How do you know about Sasha?" Father demanded, although his voice was barely louder than a whisper. At this an extremely sad expression began to write itself across Monty's face.

"Mr. Harth came to visit me a few days ago. And he told me everything… he even showed me Sasha's birth certificate, and a personal blood test he had done in order to be doubly sure that she was yours… and everything was crystal clear; by blood she is yours Ben. I almost couldn't believe it. But then he asked me if I could become Sasha's legal guardian… I knew that I had to talk to you as soon as possible about this." Monty said and Fathers eyes became even more narrow and filled with rage.

"Did you say yes to becoming her guardian?" Father questioned darkly.

"I told Mr. Harth that I'd think it over and get back to him… Ben… she's Mariah's child, she's **your** child! She should be with you; she needs you!" Monty pointed out.

"She **does not** need me Monty." Father said coldly… that cold feeling in his chest suddenly felt like it was condensing into an uncomfortable knot. "She is only staying with me for the rest of the month, and then she'll go to some place where she can get the things-... what I can't give." At this a cold, unsettling silence fell between the two brothers. Monty looked like he was in complete shock, and that he almost couldn't believe what he had just heard.

"So… you do care about her Ben." Monty concluded, but Father said nothing he just adjusted his pipe a bit.

"Not really."

"You're lying Ben…"

"What does it matter Monty?" Father grumbled as it felt like the icy grip in his chest just went completely numb. "What can I really offer that kid? Love? Care? A family? What kind of parent do you really think I'd make? I can't give her any of those things; I don't know the first thing about being a parent! And I can't just give her love… that is an emotion that is completely alien to me. How can I give something that I never had?"

"You had Mariah!" Monty snapped angrily at his younger brother. His tone actually got Father to flinch unnerved by his brother's tone of voice. "Do not try to play your self-pity card Ben, that won't do anything for your case. And for your information no one knows how to be a parent at first… you learn as you go, as there is also no set way on how to be a good parent, since all kids are different. And that little girl does need you Ben…"

"…_perhaps…almost as much as you need her…"_

Father looked at Monty like he had just gone completely mad. "And just what is that supposed to mean?"

"Ben… sometimes life brings you what you **need** rather than what you **want**." Monty commented very softly. In fact his whole expression had softened considerably. "Look, no one can force you to do anything that you don't want, just think about it for a while Ben. And know this… just because your heart has grown distant and cold does not mean that it is gone. You have a good heart Ben… Mariah saw that; maybe you should try listening to it more often."

…_Once again silence fell between the brothers…_

"Just… go away Monty…" Father finally said gloomily… Monty just sighed and shook his head unhappily… of course before Monty could so much as utter a peep; an arrow suddenly contacted an Archers Target that had been set up less than five feet away from him thus causing him to jump slightly in surprise. Right after that the sound of a lot of people clapping got both Monty and Fathers attention. About 25 feet away from the brothers current position was a stall lined with various medieval and antique weapons. A large crowd of onlookers were gathered there as Sasha currently held an Archers bow in her hand and was currently taking dead aim with another very real, very pointed arrow. Within a second, the girl released the arrow and let it fly… and just like the arrow she had released before, it hit the very center of the target… right next to the first one.

"Wow, you're really good at this!" Nigel said in complete awe as Sasha rubbed the back of her head sheepishly as the growing crowd once again burst into applause.

"Well… four years of Archery lessons are bound to pay off eventually." Sasha chuckled; as she was clearly neither fond of, nor used to being the center of attention. Naturally the growing crowd, and the fact that Monty nearly got hit with an arrow, had successfully caught the attention of both adults and they proceeded to make their way over to the two kids.

"What are you doing?" Father demanded… although his tone of voice was surprisingly less evil than it usually was. Nigel immediately took notice of this and his eyes narrowed behind his sunglasses… and even though he was sorely tempted to say something to the usually foul tempered Arch-Nemesis of the Kids Next Door, he instead chose to remain silent… a very rarely explored option for him. His reasoning for this choice? Simple… he didn't want that fiery demon of an adult to bring harm to either his dad, or Sasha… even though he was now aware that Father was in fact his biological uncle, he wasn't completely sure that he wouldn't hurt his own brother. And Sasha had to be the luckiest kid in the world **(In a very loose sense…)** she'd been staying with Father for about two weeks now and she was still breathing… and while Nigel wondered about this, and about the strange feeling of something being oddly different about Sasha… he couldn't quite bring himself to ask. But still, he believed that if he accidently pissed Father off now, he'd probably make life a living hell for her. And he really didn't want that for poor Sasha… she had it bad enough as it was.

"Shooting targets." Sasha said simply as the owner of this weapons stall handed her another arrow. And barely even taking a second, Sasha let the arrow fly at the target… and sure enough this arrow pierced the very center of the target. Now there was a nice little cluster of arrows all in the center of the Archers Target.

"Well this is all very impressive;" Monty said as he along with most of the crowd once again applauded the young girl's impressive Archery skills. "But are you really allowed to be doing this?"

"I have no problem with it," Said a tall, balding, older gentleman at the stalls counter who was currently busy with over a dozen customers all whom seemed interested in buying some of his various antique weapons… primarily Archers Bows. "If at anything she's really helping my sales… although I only have one arrow left now hon… if you could do any tricks for the finale, that would be most appreciated." At this Sasha looked thoughtful for a minute or so before she blinked once as an interesting idea suddenly clicked in her mind.

"Would you like me to split the arrow right in the center?" She asked… only this got a slightly odd look from most of the onlookers, Father included.

"You do know that it's physically impossible to split an arrow…" He stated flatly… only this just got an equally determined and somewhat cocky look from Sasha. Who couldn't resist giggling a little as a plan began forming within her mind.

"It's not impossible for me…"

"Yes, it is."

"No it isn't."

"Prove it."

"Fine." At this Sasha took the last arrow from the Antique dealer and carefully lined it up with the target… only unlike the quick shots she had rocketed off, with this one she was clearly taking her time with…

After another minute, some of Sasha's blue fire sprang to life and positioned itself around her right eye, and after another second that small cluster of blue flames took on a very distinctive look… having formed a cross-hair that she was using to help her with this nearly impossible shot. And then there was also another single, tiny blue flame positioned right at the arrows tip. After another seemingly endless moment Sasha let that arrow fly. The flame on the arrow, while it was airborne, suddenly covered its entire point…

…_And the white hot blade carved through the other arrow and split it like a wishbone… _

A hushed, awe filled silence fell over the entire area… before a thunderous applause suddenly erupted from all of the onlookers; some were still in partial disbelief of what they had just witnessed. But what was probably the most surprising thing of all was the fact that Father was right there applauding with the rest of the crowd. And he wasn't blowing his top in anger that he had just been proven wrong. In fact, he almost looked… impressed? Dare it be said… did he look… proud?

…**It completely blew Nigel's mind…**

"Just don't ask me to do that one again… it's a little nerve-racking." Sasha said with a loud sigh and she handed the stall owner back the bow she had been using. But she then looked over at Father, a somewhat contented smile on her face. "Told you it wasn't impossible. Not a lot of things are…"

"Alright, I concede… you win." Father said in a surprisingly warm tone as Sasha made her way over to his side. "And I'll admit it you have some pretty amazing talents. For an annoying kid..."

"Thanks… old man." Sasha joked back. And for a minute Nigel thought for sure that Sasha had just signed her own death warrant… But Father… just chuckled a little bit, impressed with Sasha's bravery. At this they both began to leave the vicinity of the weapons stall which was now incredibly busy… ironically enough Father found himself to have recovered from his little exchange of words with his brother that had occurred earlier; and now was content to just converse with his daughter… which he found himself enjoying immensely… and on that, forgetting about the worries that inhabited the back of his mind about what kind of '_real'_ father he would be he began to find that within his own mind he was referring to Sasha more and more as his own daughter…

_And he found that he didn't mind it at all… _

But as Nigel watched as Father and Sasha walked off, he started to go after them… only to be stopped by his Father putting a hand on his shoulder.

"Let your friend go Nigel." Monty said softly; but this only got a horrified look from his son.

"B-But Dad! That guy is dangerous!" Nigel stuttered, and Monty frowned at this.

"Nigel don't talk about your uncle that way… and besides, I have a feeling that he's of no threat to your little friend." Monty said casting a quick glance in the general direction that the two had gone.

"How can you be so sure?" Nigel questioned.

"Call it a parent's instinct." Monty said with a small smile, and at that he turned on his heel and began walking away. "Come along then my boy, there is still plenty more to see." And at that in spite of Nigel's many doubts he sighed and followed his dad deeper into the fair.

_**(Much later on that Night)**_

_This was not going to go well at all…_

Shortly after returning to the Delightful Mansion from the Antiques Fair Father had actually begun toying around with the idea of telling Sasha the truth. About how he was really her biological father and whatnot… but the normally fiery and rash villain found that getting up his nerve to have this conversation with a little girl was definitely a lot harder than expected. It was extremely late at the moment, maybe two o'clock in the morning and Father still hadn't slept at all… he had just been pacing back and forth in his inner Sanctum for the past several hours. In fact he was pretty sure that if he kept this up he'd wear a hole into his carpet.

"Damn it Mariah, you've put me in one hell of a position! Just what the heck am I supposed to do now?" Father grumbled… he found that he'd been talking out loud to himself more and more; well… it was more like he was talking out loud to Mariah more and more. He didn't have a clue why he had suddenly started doing this; maybe it was because in the distant past whenever he had a problem he'd always had Mariah to talk too about it. But the more he thought about that the less sense it made… it had been years since he'd talked to Mariah and now she was dead; she was gone… so why did he suddenly feel as though she had come back? He shrugged these thoughts off, if he began to dwell on this for too long he'd just end up giving himself another migraine.

"Maybe… this could work?" He pondered out loud again. "But… no, I'm still going to crush those pesky Kids Next Door! Hmm… perhaps Sasha could assist me? No… grrr… there have already been enough problems between her and my Delightful Children." It was official; Father was at war with himself. If he did decide to keep Sasha, no doubt there would be a constant issue with his Delightful Children… that was definitely gonna be a major problem.

…_**But what if he Delightfulized Sasha?**_

Now that thought hadn't occurred to him before… and quite frankly the more he thought about it, the more it repulsed him. The thought of changing anything about Sasha didn't sit well with him in the slightest. Although at the same time if he thought about Delightfulizing any of the brats from Sector V did not repulse him…

…_They were his enemies…._

…_Sasha was his daughter…_

That was when it hit him, changing anything about Sasha would be like changing something about his beloved Mariah! He wouldn't have changed a single hair on her head… ok, maybe he wished her cooking skills hadn't been so bad but even with that he couldn't have loved her any more. Mariah was perfect just the way she was and he loved her with all of his heart just the way she had been…

…_Wait… what the hell did he just think?_

…_love?_

"Damn you Monty…" Father hissed as he found himself eating his own words. He now remembered that love was not as unknown to him as he had made it out to be. Once upon a time he had given his heart to Mariah… and apparently she still had it. Even in the grave… But… maybe, just maybe… he was beginning to love his daughter too.

"…_Why not?"_

That was it. Fathers' nerve had returned and simultaneously it felt as though someone had lit a fire inside of his chest. Quite a difference from the icy feeling that usually inhabited his heart. He exited his Sanctum and headed up the stairs towards Sasha's room, intent on telling her the truth… But in spite of this, Father still found that he was quite nervous… he'd already lied to Sasha about not knowing who her biological father was. So… this was not looking like it was going to go over very well. But still… he had to try… When he finally reached Sasha's room; he took a deep breath and opened the door without knocking…

…_of course Sasha was sound asleep…_

Now at this Father mentally slapped himself. It was 2am on a Sunday; of course Sasha was asleep…. Hell, normally even he was asleep by now too. He also noticed that Sasha, like most young girls, had her several stuffed animals in bed with her. But she was hugging that new monstrosity that she had gotten from the Antique Fair particularly close. This seemed a little bizarre to Father, as with all of its metal bits he would have assumed that that thing would be very uncomfortable to sleep with.

"What an ugly thing… the kids got weird taste." He muttered under his breath. But then again… Mariah was also thought to have a rather different taste as well… as she had fallen in love with Benedict, when most normal girls wouldn't have gone near him with a ten foot pole.

…_wait a minute, did that thing just narrow its eyes at him?..._

Father just shook his head, as he was apparently far more tired than he had initially realized. He would have to wait until a decent hour to have this little conversation with Sasha… But just as he began to turn around to leave, something caught his eye and stopped him cold…

…_Mariah's precious Music Box…._

God, he never thought that he'd see that thing again… he thought that Mariah had thrown it away when it broke. Father reached out and carefully picked it up; indeed it was the very same music box that Mariah had shown him back when they were kids. Father especially remembered this thing…

…_because he was the one who had accidently broken it…_

He had been holding that while he was walking down the grand staircase that had been in Mariah's house; but he wasn't fully paying attention to what he was doing because he was so distracted listening to the tune that the Music Box had been playing… he wasn't watching where he was going and he tripped and dropped the Glass Music Box…

…**And it had shattered into a million pieces…**

When he had broken that Music Box, he was almost certain that Mariah would never speak to him again… that thing had been so precious to her. And he could certainly understand why, its song and structure had been so very beautiful... Even to this day Father would swear he sometimes heard the music box's song in his dreams... But even though Mariah was clearly heartbroken by the breaking of this Music box; she didn't hold it against him. _'It was an accident Ben… it's alright. '_ and just like that she had forgiven him.

'_Hang on one minute…'_

Father remembered something; and he quickly put the Music Box back down and walked out of Sasha's room and quietly closed the door behind him... He then made his way back to his Sanctum and went over to one of the bookshelves that were near his desk and began looking through all of the various books… And after a few minutes he found what he was looking for and he pulled out a particularly old, extremely thick book from the cramped shelves… It was in fact an old photo album that had come into Fathers possession a few years ago… It had been a Christmas present from Monty. And it had actually been in the Uno family for an extremely long time… In fact on its cover was written in bright gold lettering **'The Uno Family Photo Album.'**

…_As was emphasized by the fact that the first photo was his parents wedding picture…_

Perhaps the only time Benedict ever saw his Father smiling in a totally Not-Menacing way; and without his silhouette at that. In his human form, Grandfather looked a great deal like Benedict. He was very thin, had very pale skin, black hair, and amber gold eyes. In this photo he wore an attractive black tuxedo and black shoes. Now Benedicts Mother looked a lot more like Monty… again probably another reason why his father favored his older brother... She was a little heavier than average but wasn't fat; her hair was a deep chocolate brown, her eyes were a very pale blue in color, and she wore a beautiful white wedding dress. And written beneath this photo in gold lettering were his parents' names…

'**James and Claudia'**

Grandfather never once struck Father as someone to be named James… but maybe once upon a time the old cretin had actually had some sort of a heart… even if over time it dissolved into nothing but a muscle that was used to pump tequila, acid, and tapioca through his veins… **(Fathers own personal belief was that the old man didn't even have blood in his veins after a point…)** But that aside, these pictures were also the only link he'd ever had to his deceased mother… over the course of several more pages, there were dozens of other photos of his parents together… happy… at one point there were a few photos of his mother when she was quite pregnant, and then there were even more photos… only they were with his mother, father, and a baby Monty. And as the years clearly progressed, it was clear that they had all been a happy little family for quite some time… and then there was an oddly empty page with only one photo on it… it was a photo of his mother but she was clearly pregnant once again, no doubt this time with Benedict… only this time she did not look healthy at all. In spite of being pregnant she had clearly lost a lot of weight and looked far too pale… but she was still smiling in the photo nonetheless. And the very next set of pages… held pictures of her funeral. He remembered that Monty once told him that their father had roasted the idiot with the camera… but he could never bring himself to throw away the pictures.

After the funeral pictures, the entire tone of the photo album changed. There were no pictures of Benedict when he had been a baby… in fact there was only one picture of Benedict as a young child in the entire photo album. It was a photo of their entire family standing side by side. His father was silhouetted by now and wearing his usual scowl, Monty stood directly next to their father and he somehow still managed to smile… even if it was a forced smile… and then at last there was Benedict, barely five at the time… even back when he was a child he rarely smiled, but in this picture... he had tears noticeably cascading down his small face. In fact, in this photo it was fairly clear to see that he had a bruise forming on the side of his face… more than likely the reason for his tears.

'_My father always hated me… even before I could understand why.'_ Benedict thought bitterly as a feeling of stabbing pain began to fill his chest. He then just shrugged it off and kept looking through the book.

Now the next few pages were filled with Monty and his family. These pages had actually been filled in by Monty himself, back when the book had come into his possession before he gave it to Benedict… and then finally there were the completely random photos that made up the next dozen pages or so; and again these pictures were courtesy of Monty… only now there were a few pictures of Benedict when he was a bit older… and it was really not all that surprising that just about every photo he was in so was Mariah, as one of her many hobbies was photography.

"Now where was… ah, here it is." Father muttered to himself as he finally found the particular photo he was looking for…

This photo was of Ben when he was about twelve year's old standing beside Mariah when she was only about eleven. Mariah was smiling innocently, while Benedict was actually blushing quite noticeably… he could remember that it had been Monty who had been the one to take this picture; as his older brother seemed to be the only one who was actually happy that Benedict had finally found a friend… and as for his noticeable blush… that was actually quite a common thing back when Benedict and Mariah had just become friends, which had been the case when this particular photo had been taken… but it was what Benedict was holding in his hands that made this photo so unique.

_**It was Mariah's Music Box… in all of its former glory…**_

It was sad really, this picture had been taken mere moments before the Music Box's destruction. The Music Box had originally had five clear white glass columns that all gently sloped and curled into a spiral above the Music Box's center. And below this glass spiral was another small glass structure, only this was of a beautiful, vibrant, glass red flame. Father could remember how truly breathtaking the Music Box was when activated. The flame under the glass columns would ignite and would begin to slowly turn clockwise… then a light would flood into the glass columns themselves and then its music would begin to play as the columns would begin to turn counter-clockwise… It was a one of the most beautiful things Father had ever seen in his life. But Father found himself a bit more surprised at finding this picture for several reasons… the first was he was amazed that he actually remembered where it was; the next was far more unnerving…

_Why did he barely recognize himself?_

He shook his head and forced himself to dismiss that thought. Viewing it as just the result of him being a little too overtired. But it would be no matter; he was going to sleep right after this… For the final time that evening, Father left his Sanctum and walked through the hallway back to Sasha's room. And very quietly he left the photo on her nightstand… he was fully aware of Sasha's glass-making hobby and figured that it technically was his fault that the music box was broken in the first place, he might as well help her out a little…

'_I don't need to decide anything right now… the conversation can wait, I've got time to figure this out. She won't be leaving for a little over a week, that's plenty of time.'_ Father thought to himself as he left Sasha's room and proceeded down the hallway to his own master bedroom.

…_Only…_

…_It was a shame that by the following weekend Sasha's entire world was going to come crashing down around her…_

**Yes I know this chapter took forever to get up, but in my defense I was on vacation for the last week and I left my computer at home… so… yeah sorry about that ^^; As usual thank you all for reviewing, and please do continue to keep Reading and Reviewing!**


	9. And It All Comes Crashing Down

**Chapter 9**

**And It All Comes Crashing Down...**

…_It was so beautiful…_

Sasha could not help but admire her own handiwork as she looked over the now completely restored Music Box. Imagine her surprise though, one day she had woken up from a particularly bad nightmare no less… and she'd found on her nightstand a photograph; of her Mother and presumably one of her mother's friends from her childhood. But there it was, the GODSEND's true form… it had taken Sasha all week to accurately restore the Music Box back to its former glory… but looking at it now that it was complete, it was nothing short of radiant.

"_Mom… your music box is fixed. And it's beautiful; just like you said it used to be. I hope I did it justice… and I hope that you're happy. I love you mommy." _The girl silently prayed to her mother's soul. Although this did cause her eyes to well with tears… but she wiped them away before they could start running down her face. But suddenly the large grandfather clock down the hallway began to chime that it was 2 o'clock in the afternoon and Sasha mentally kicked herself... she had said she would be in there already…

So as quick as she possibly could, Sasha grabbed up her precious music box; **(As now that it was finally fixed she was NOT going to let it out of her sight… especially with those five rotten brats loose in the house) **and carefully put it into her backpack that she placed off to the side of her wheelchair and then she made her way to the mansions grand living room, where Father already was…

…_Setting up an ornate Chessboard…_

"Sorry, I got caught up with something." Sasha muttered sheepishly as she took her position on the side of the chessboard that had the white pieces set up. Father not surprisingly was seated in a large antique chair with the black chess pieces set up in front of him.

"Its fine… and it's your move." Father said simply… Currently Father, Sasha and the Delightful's were all in the living room; although the Delightfuls were sitting at one of couches with several of their textbooks out and doing their homework. And they were making a particular effort to ignore both Sasha's presence and Fathers obvious favoritism towards her. But back to the chess game that was currently taking place; a few days prior to this Father had been playing a game of chess with the Delightful Children, which was a common thing… chess was a strategy game and Father used it in order to keep both his own and the Delightful's tactical minds sharp and skilled. Well on this particular day Sasha had sat and watched them play and once Father had successfully beaten the Delightful Children she asked him to teach her how to play. Which he did… and for the past couple of days Sasha had played against the Delightful Children. And she had even managed to beat them a couple of times, much to their annoyance. And today she had asked to play a game against Father; a challenge that he had accepted. Which had thus led up to what was currently taking place…

_And the game began…_

Since white went first, Sasha started with moving one of her pawns out a space and even though she was focusing on the game… she decided to strike up a conversation as well. "Well, I guess next week my grandpa is going to be coming to get me." She said as in a few days the month would be over and she'd be heading back home.

"Are you looking forward to it?" Father inquired as he as well chose to move one of his pawns. Sasha chuckled a little bit.

"Yeah kinda… I miss my Grandpa. But I've actually had a pretty good time here… maybe I can come back and visit once in a while?" the young girl inquired as she moved another of her pieces; successfully getting an amused chuckle out of Father **(And a look of pure horror from the Delightful Children in the background…)**

"We'll see…" Father chuckled as he took one of Sasha's chess pieces. Needless to say that he hadn't had that certain conversation with Sasha yet… although he had now decided on when he was going to do that; the night before she was to leave. Nothing like waiting until the last minute, but he had decided on that and he wasn't going to change his mind… The chess game continued for a little while in silence. But it wasn't an uncomfortable silence; but right as Sasha was about to take Fathers queen… she stopped; a look of complete confusion began to write itself on her face. But she wasn't looking confused because of something relating to the game of chess she was playing, she appeared to be looking at something behind Father…

"Mr. Wartomer?" She said in a surprised voice. Father looked at her strangely.

"Wha-?"

"…Ben…"

Father nearly jumped out of his silhouetted skin. And he immediately jumped up and whirled around only to see Monty and a strange man standing in the doorway to his living room. This needless to say got Father really raging mad… nothing like some uninvited guests to get his blood boiling when he was otherwise in a very good mood.

"**Damn it Monty! How did you get in?" **Father snapped a few flames igniting around his body… but that was when he noticed something. Monty looked really upset about something, the same expression was also written on the strangers face as well… hang on… Father recognized this man; he had been one of the trio of individuals he had seen leaving Ezekiel Harth's office back when this entire mess had first started.

"We rang the bell and knocked on the door several times… but in the end I just used the key you keep under the doormat." Monty said in an oddly emotionless tone… something that was not naturally to his character. This caused a nervous feeling to begin to form inside of Fathers chest.

…_something wasn't right here…_

The man Sasha had identified to be Mr. Wartomer then made his presence more noticed. In his appearance he was a young man with sandy blonde hair, large blue eyes, and an expensive suit… he took a shaky step forward, apparently he was rather intimidated by Father. Which was not all that surprising as most people were...

"Mr. Uno, my name is Charles Wartomer. I'm Mr. Ezekiel Harths lawyer… oh, um… hello Sasha." He said as he noticed Sasha move from her position at one end of the chessboard in order to have a better view of what was going on.

"Hi!" Sasha replied with a smile… she apparently failed to notice the ominous looks written on the two adults faces… "Did Grandpa send you to pick me up early?" At this the man visibly paled and he bit his lip… as though he was trying to figure out just how to say… what he needed to say.

"Sasha… your… last night… last night your Grandfather passed away…"

…_A pin could be heard dropping from a mile away…_

As this news began to sink in… Sasha immediately seemed to undergo a noticeable physical change. Her smile instantly disappeared from her face, her pale skin seemed to pale even more until it became almost chalk white, and lastly;

…_her eyes…_

The girl's normal amber orbs that shone with life and energy almost instantly seemed to wither and die, like flowers that were suddenly gripped by an unnatural frost. And deep within Sasha's being… within her very _'Heart of Hearts' _something could be heard cracking…

"…what…" was the only thing she could find the strength to say.

"I'm… I'm so sorry Sasha." Mr. Wartomer said sadly to the clearly devastated child. "But your Grandfather was very sick, for a very long time… you see his heart was failing and… and last night he developed a blood clot in his lung and… well he went quickly, with little to no pain… And um… according to your Grandfathers final wishes; you are to go to live with your biological father. If he will have you-"

"**My Father?"** Sasha roared, her voice cracking only in the way that would indicate she was on the verge of tears… **"I don't even know him! I can't stay with some stranger who I've never met!"**

"But Sasha, you have met him." Wartomer said suddenly very confused. "You've been staying with him for the past month. Didn't you know?"

…_The room became dead silent… _

"What?" Sasha said, her voice trembling as she looked up at Father. "He's not my Dad! He-"

"Actually… he… is." Monty said giving his younger brother an unreadable look… as he had no choice but to reveal the truth now.

"SAY WHAT?" The Delightfuls also couldn't help yelling. As ultimately their very worst nightmare had just been realized. Although it certainly did explain Father's so called favoritism towards Sasha. But before Father could so much as think about yelling at Monty for revealing the truth to Sasha, or scolding the Delightful Children for their sudden outburst… something deep inside of Sasha just exploded.

"**YOU LIED TO ME!"** Sasha raged as half of her black and blue silhouette appeared around her body in a fit of hate filled rage! **"I ACTUALLY TRUSTED YOU, AND YOU LIED! YOU REALLY ARE JUST AS BAD AS MY GRANDPA MADE YOU OUT TO BE! MAYBE EVEN WORSE!"**

…_Naturally at this Father got really angry…_

"**Don't you dare talk to me like that brat!"** He proceeded to snap right back at her. Although he didn't want to yell, it just came out that way… and his heart began screaming at him to stop what was inevitably going to happen… as his temper and mind were far too easy to rile. And he rarely ever listened to his heart.

…_And he definitely wasn't listening now…._

"**WHY? DON'T LIKE THE TRUTH? YOU KNEW THAT MY GRANDFATHER WAS SICK TO DIDN'T YOU? AND YOU DIDN'T TELL ME THAT EITHER? THANKS FOR NOTHING! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU SO MUCH!"** Sasha raged as tears began running down her cheeks.

"Mr. Uno!" Wartomer said before Father could rage right back at the distraught Sasha. "Are you…?

"**What would I want with a kid like her?" **Father growled, all at once defying his earlier intentions of keeping Sasha… his own anger and frustration were clouding his mind. **"I kept my word to that old geezer, now that it's done GET OUT OF MY HOUSE AND NEVER COME BACK!"** Once again the room resumed its stone cold silence. Off to the corner everyone had actually forgotten that the Delightful Children were still in the room; although they were so completely blown away by what they were hearing that they could nothing but stare as these events unfolded before them. As they had never heard anyone speak to Father like this before... nor had they heard Father **_this_** mad before.

"…Mr. Harth… thought that would be the case." Wartomer muttered barely loud enough for anyone to hear. As he was completely appalled by Father's lack of sensitivity. "And… if that's the really the case; Sasha will thus go to live with her paternal uncle, Monty Uno." But Sasha didn't seem to hear this… she just put her face in her hands and she began to tremble violently… as she seemed to completely retreat from reality. Her world had just crashed around her, her mother was gone, she was still crippled, her grandfather had just passed away… and now the reality of her father's identity; and that he truly wanted nothing to do with her… had cut far deeper than any knife ever could. Monty Uno on the other hand said nothing, but he walked over to the shaking mass that was Sasha and gave the child a comforting hug.

"I'm so sorry about everything. No one should ever have to go through what you are going through… but… it'll be alright sweetheart… and you'll have a family that will love you." Monty whispered as soothingly as he could muster. To be honest he didn't know what else he could say. But he gave Father a look… the coldest, iciest look he'd ever given anybody. "Let's get going…"

"I'll have the rest of her stuff sent to you in a few days…" Father grumbled as he sat back down in his chair, facing the half-finished chess game. Monty Uno whispered something to Wartomer who proceeded to take Sasha outside to the waiting car. Leaving Monty alone with Ben.

"Going to lecture me again brother?" Father hissed not even looking at Monty.

"Nothing I could say could even scratch the surface of what you've done…" Monty said tonelessly. "But you should know… she didn't mean a word of what she said. She's distraught... her entire world has just crashed around her and… she was just looking for someone to blame."

"I had nothing to do with her grandfather's death." Father said as he began to reassemble the chessboard… just for the hell of it.

"Deep down she knows that… but you were unable to tolerate her if she didn't behave for you all the time. Which will never happen with any child... You could not even soften your heart when the last member of her family died… children have less control of their actions than adults do, but you... you have even less control than a child! I'm not saying anything else to you '_Father'_ you've disappointed me… and you let Mariah down, as usual. The only difference now is that she isn't alive to see it… but rest assured… she knows." Monty said turning around and walking down the hallway to the front door...

…_Leaving Father and the Delightful Children alone once again…_

The Delightful Children remained completely quiet, as they could tell that Father was way madder than they had ever seen him. And while they were nothing short of thriled that Sasha was finally out of their hair and their house… they didn't want to be the ones who Father would explode at because of this mess. So the very quietly they gathered up their books and homework and quietly slipped away to their room… luckily for them Father was far to mad to notice…

…_And they began to hope that things would soon return to normal…_

As for Father, he didn't move from that chair all day… as his brain and his heart were now having a war amongst themselves. He just stayed silent and watched as the hours ticked by on a nearby clock. And it wasn't until late that night that his anger finally manifested and he smacked the chessboard and chess pieces across the room… a single solitary thought echoing through the icy chambers of his stone cold being...

…_What have I done? _

**Ok, that's it for this chapter. Sorry if this chapter seemed somewhat short and crappy but I had a hell of a time figuring out how Father would react to this particular situation. And as usual, thank you all for reading now please do not forget to Review! ^_^**


	10. Burning Rage

**Chapter 10**

**Burning Rage**

_Nigel didn't take the news well…_

Imagine his surprise when his Dad came back with an extremely distraught Sasha. Poor Sasha looked like she had just been belched out from the deepest pit of hell. And his father looked really unhappy as well. Nigel had been watching from the kitchen window when his dad had come home, so had his mother… in fact no sooner was Sasha visible did his mother whisper 'oh dear' under her breath and rush out the front door… she and Monty conversed for a moment before she apparently tried to speak to Sasha… only it was very noticeable that Sasha was nonresponsive to anything … they brought her inside and showed her to one of the spare rooms. Nigel couldn't really overhear everything that his parents were saying to Sasha… not that it mattered; he got the whole story once they came back out…

…_and told him that his cousin was going to be living with them…_

Now this news just blew Nigel away. Sasha was his cousin? And she most definitely was not from his mother's side of the family…wait that could only mean-!

"You see Nigel… Sasha is actually your Uncle Ben's biological daughter." His Father had begun-

…_Well Monty never finished whatever he was about to say… because Nigel fainted…_

Although Nigel did acknowledge that he finally found out why there was something about Sasha that didn't sit right with him. Now that he actually gave it some thought, Sasha looked a great deal like Fathers human form… only… once he had actually regained his consciousness and heard out the rest of his dads story about what had transpired earlier at the Delightful Mansion… he had found out what really happened to Sasha's life. And he now realized that she was probably not going to be in a very good state…

…_She may have had Fathers flesh and blood, but she wasn't him…_

Not to mention that Nigel now felt like absolute crud for being as mean as he had been to Sasha… even though he and Sasha were now friends, looking back at his actions especially now that Sasha had her world crumbling down around her. He felt like he needed to say something… And he got his chance later on that night when his mother asked him to call Sasha down for dinner.

Nigel slowly cracked the door to Sasha's room and peered inside. The entire room was as black as Fathers soul. He could only just barely make out Sasha's outline through the darkness… from what he could make out, Sasha was still sitting in her wheelchair… apparently staring at the wall.

"Um… Sasha? It's um… dinner time. Mom made spaghetti and meatballs, you should-"

"**I'm not hungry…"** Sasha growled in an evil voice that just seemed to resound throughout the room, her glowing golden eyes suddenly seemed to leer back at Nigel. Who sighed in annoyance.

"Look Sasha, I'm sorry about what happened to your grand-"

"**Leave me alone Nigel!"** Sasha said evilly again, although her tone had a very distinct warning to its tone.

"I'm just trying to say-"

"**I SAID LEAVE ME ALONE!"** At this a distinct wave of blue flames encircled Sasha's body highlighting her features… and it appeared that she still had half of her black silhouette cloaking the entire left side of her body… at this Nigel just quickly closed the door, finding that he was every bit as afraid right now as he would have been if he had been facing Father himself. And inside he knew that this wasn't going to be ending well at all… But he couldn't do anything right now…

…_all he could do was tell his parents that Sasha just wasn't hungry… _

…_and later on that night he informed the rest of his team about this new development…_

_**But in spite of everything, school still came on Monday…**_

And even though Sasha had the ultimate acceptable reason for not going; and Numbuh 1's parents would have certainly allowed her to take the day off… Sasha said that she had to go in order to keep her mind busy… otherwise she would go completely insane. And while Nigel's parents had honored the girls wishes and allowed her to go to school; it didn't appear that her mind was being kept very busy. In fact she still seemed to be incredibly out of it. Not only was she wearing the exact same outfit that she had been wearing when she had been brought home to Nigel's' house, but also her large gold eyes just seemed to stare blankly ahead… like she was nothing more than a broken doll… or a corpse…

She also didn't seem to be paying much attention to her schoolwork either. Ms. Thompson couldn't emphasize enough just how important todays lesson was and that all students should be taking thorough notes in order to have a chance at passing the upcoming test on Friday. But Sasha hadn't so much as picked up her pencil or opened her notebook. Her hair also looked a bit frazzled, like she hadn't even bothered to brush it this morning… and she did nothing but stare emotionlessly ahead, not caring in the slightest about what was going on around her.

"Ms. Harth, are you paying attention at all?" Ms. Thompson asked darkly to Sasha. Sadly the school had not been informed about all of the current developments that were going on in Sasha's life. Not that Sasha seemed to take any offence to this; she just cast a long cold glance Ms. Thompson's way…

"I don't… I don't feel so good." Was all that Sasha muttered, but it was in a voice that was barely louder than a whisper.

"If that's the case… you may go to the nurse." Ms. Thompson said with a much more distinctive bit of sensitivity in her voice. Normally she rarely let kids go to the nurse if they said they're feeling sick… as ninety percent of the time they were faking it… but Sasha looked like hell, there was simply no way that someone could fake looking as ill as she did… Although Sasha never responded to her words, she just wheeled her way out of the classroom.

…_but she didn't go to the nurse…_

She just wheeled herself around some of the hallways, seemingly having no purpose or will left to her. In the end she just went into the girls' bathroom and finally broke down into a crying mass of pure sorrow and unhappiness. She wasn't at all aware of how long she was in there, but it must have been quite a long time as the final bell resounded and the thunderous running of kids racing out the schools front door was heard.

_And a comforting hand was suddenly placed on Sasha's shoulder…_

Sasha's head snapped up and she glared daggers at who was touching her… which turned out to be none other than Abigail and Kuki. Both looked clearly quite worried at Sasha, whose eyes were so bloodshot that they almost looked orange in contrast to their usual gold. But they were also filling quite quickly with a look of pure anger and rage… emotions that were directed right at Kuki and Abby.

"**What do you want?"** Sasha hissed malevolently at the two other girls, successfully making Numbuh 5 take a step back in surprise. Even though she could understand what Sasha was probably going through… it was still surprising to hear her so mad…

"Numbuh 1 told us Everything… and-" Abby began; only to be abruptly cut off by Sasha suddenly laughing… in an extremely creepy way.

"**Oh joy! All my business is public knowledge! Why won't people take the hint? I want to be alone!"** Sasha fumed angrily and she began wheeling her way out of the bathroom… only she swung the door open and tried to go forward at the same time causing her hand to slip off the wheel of her wheelchair and ultimately caused her to lose balance and tumble out of wheelchair onto the floor just inside of the bathroom doorway… and what aggravated her all the more was seeing that the boy members of Sector V had apparently been waiting for their cohorts and Sasha just outside the bathroom door…

"Whoa Sasha you ok?"

"**No I'm not ok!"** Sasha sobbed from her position on the floor; she was currently grabbing her long dark hair and pulling on it like she was about to rip it out of her head. She was also creating a very distinct aura of flames, preventing anyone from getting to close to her… sadly this was also preventing anyone from helping the poor girl back into her wheelchair as well.

"Sasha you need to calm down girl!" Numbuh 5 said as she brought her arm up to shield her face from the blazing fire that had formed around her disturbed friend. Kuki was hiding behind Abby, as she was afraid of the sheer rage that was resounding within Sasha's voice…

"**Calm down? Calm Down? CALM DOWN? I can't calm down! Everyone I care about dies! I have lost EVERYTHING! First I lost the ability to walk, then I lost my mother and now my grandfather; and now I've found out that my biological father is an evil malevolent monster! How am I supposed to calm down?"** Sasha raged violently… as she was now beyond completely hysterical…

"Yeah we're sorry about how your life is crud and all, but turn down the heat already! You'll cook us all!" Numbuh 4 growled angrily… Naturally this approach didn't go over so well as Sasha's tear soaked eyes narrowed at him and the flames of rage around her form only increased… burning hotter than they ever had before.

"**Shut up!"** Sasha snarled. But then her eyes became larger, almost like she was surprised by something… but she then whispered something that was odd to say the very least. "Wait… I… I can feel the heat of the flames."

"Wha-?" Nigel said suddenly looking confused. "Can't you feel them normally?"

"…_not in my legs…"_

Sasha's eyes suddenly seemed to flash, as though an idea of some sorts had just occurred to her. Then all of her fire seemed to die down… but less than a second later a single thick, concentrated tongue of flame sprouted from between Sasha's shoulder blades. And it began to slowly make its way down Sasha's spine… The second that the flame began to move though, Sasha began to scream in agony… as though she was actually burning herself!

"**IT HURTS! OH GOD IT HURTS!"** Sasha screamed at the top of her lungs just as the flame seemed to slow down in the middle of her back, while it was still moving it had significantly slowed… now with every inch it descended along her backbone…

…_Sasha's silhouette began to cover more of her body… _

"What are you doing Sasha?" Numbuh 3 asked fearfully.

"If it's hurting you quit burning yourself!" Hoagie quickly injected… but suddenly a loud snapping sound resounded through the air like a shot; and the flame disappeared… there was a brief pause, before Sasha finally spoke again.

"**It wasn't the flames that hurt me Hoagie… but welding all of my damaged nerves, and my spine back together hurt beyond anything you could imagine…"** Even though Sasha wasn't yelling now, there was something in her voice that just seemed to drip with malice and restrained anger. But then… something truly unexpected happened…

…_Sasha stood up…_

Her legs were extremely wobbly from months of no use, and Sasha's balance was more than a little off, but still she was managing to stand on her own. Now that she was finally standing upright, it could be seen that Sasha was only about an inch shorter than Numbuh 5. But putting that aside; and in spite of this being a clearly good thing for Sasha, Nigel was more than a little nervous about where this was going… and he had a very good reason for worrying…

…**As Sasha was now completely veiled by her black and blue silhouette…**

And she didn't seem to be overjoyed at the fact that she could now walk again. In fact there seemed to be an unnatural chill in the air, as though Sasha was drawing all of the heat out of the air leaving it cold and tense. In fact a few seconds after she managed to stand, she turned and threw a massive fireball at her wheelchair… completely incinerating it. That brought about a hushed silence over everyone; whether it was due to fear or uneasiness was unclear though… Although after another few more long minutes of awkward silence, Nigel cleared his throat and decided to try and diffuse this tense situation.

"Well, um… Sasha, it must be nice that you can walk again. But uh, your silhouette-"

"**I would trade it…"**

"What?"

"**I would trade my ability to walk in a heartbeat to have my Mom back… for my Grandpa… for a home! What good is being able to walk when everything else in my life is gone? I HAVE STILL LOST EVERYTHING!"** Sasha raged once again, her hate was still all too visible. Her anger was seething out into her blue flames.

"You haven't lost _Everything_ Sasha!" Nigel protested, as he was starting to get agitated at Sasha's words. "You're my cousin and… you're welcome to stay with my family… it won't be so bad." Sasha was quiet for a few moments, before she suddenly began to laugh… in a particularly dark manner.

"**Oh yeah that would be great… until another accident happens and your family dies too! Or maybe my freaky powers will scare your parents! God forbid they scare everybody else! And now I finally understand why!"** She snapped angrily. **"Because that is what happens to me, I'm unlucky… I'm a cancer to everybody I meet! You guys better beat it… or else something bad might happen to all of you as well!"**

"We're not going anywhere Sasha… and I'm not going home without you." Nigel growled angrily.

"**What ya' gonna do Nigel? Make me?"** Sasha asked in a particularly mocking tone.

"Don't tempt me…" Numbuh 1 warned. He was really getting fed up now. Maybe it was just the silhouette that was making his blood boil. Even though he knew it was Sasha, who was having some kind of a fit at the moment… he just couldn't help seeing her as a growing problem… and he had to protect his team, and with what was going on right now he was really getting the feeling that they were all in trouble right now.

"**Fine then…"** Sasha said cracking her neck. **"If you won't go away… I'll just have to make you go away!" **At that Sasha extended her arm and a pillar of blue flames erupted at Nigel who barely managed to duck in time to avoid getting fried!

Numbuh 4 was the first to react; he quickly pulled out a M.U.S.K.E.T and shot at Sasha's head… but this action was in vain, as within a millisecond a wall of flames suddenly appeared around Sasha's entire form and it caused the mustard to disintegrate before it even got near Sasha's body. Unfortunately Numbuh 4's actions merely drew Sasha's attention his way… she formed a massive ball of flames in her hand and then rocketed it at the smaller boy; Wally just barely got out of the way of that in time… although unlike Numbuh 1 he didn't get off scot free, he received a bad burn to his right arm and it had actually burned the entire right arm off of his sweatshirt.

"Hey! You leave Numbuh 4 alone!" Numbuh 3 snapped wrathfully and she actually leapt at Sasha like she was a cat, there was a distinctive rage reflected within her eyes… Sasha however merely sidestepped; allowing Kuki to plow right into poor Hoagie and the two of them tumbled down a nearby set of stairs.

"**Is that it? I do admit, I expected much more from the Kids Next Door than this…" **Sasha commented dryly. Of course there was a distinct clicking sound and Sasha found a S.P.L.A.N.K.E.R pointed at her head by Numbuh 5.

"You're out of control! Stop this Sasha we're your friends!" Abby growled angrily but still she hoped that she could stop this whole mess before it got any worse.

…_but right then, the only individuals who could have made the situation go from bad to worse decided to but in…_

"Well hello there Sasha, why what a lovely job you're doing in fighting the K-N-Doofusses." The ever smug voices of the Delightful Children suddenly interrupted the mess that was currently taking place. The good thing about this was that it completely tore Sasha's attention away from the Sector V members who began to use this opportunity to regroup…

"**What the hell do you creep's want? I'm not in the mood to deal with you today! Unless of course you guys actually want to be burned beyond recognition; then I'd be happy to help you out!"** Sasha threatened, her flames flaring around her in a warning manner.

"Why Sasha we're just here to congratulate you." The Delightful's said in an oddly calm manner.

"**For what?"** Sasha asked, narrowing her gold eyes suspiciously.

"For proving us wrong." They continued. "You see before we met you, we had always assumed that the Kids Next Door were by far the biggest losers in the entire world; but now that we know the truth about you… we've come to realize that the biggest loser in the entire world is _YOU_! Congratulations!" They laughed cruelly at Sasha… who didn't seem to respond to this…

"…_shut up…"_ Sasha said in a voice barely louder than a whisper. Something inside of her seemed to crack upon hearing the Delightful Children's particularly cruel words. And Sasha put her hands over her ears and dropped onto her knees; trying to tune them out… their words were hurting as bad as rubbing Tabasco Sauce into an open wound.

"Even though you somehow seem to have regained your ability to walk, it doesn't matter. No one wants you! Father certainly doesn't and he's your Father by blood!" The Delightful's continued… only now they were failing to notice that something was happening to Sasha…

_...she'd inherited another one of Fathers powers…_

… _Shapeshifting…._

"Shut up you idiots!" Nigel screamed at the Delightfuls' as he was the first to realize the immense danger of exactly what was happening now… but naturally the Delightful's didn't even acknowledge him, they just continued on their little rant.

"Father would rather have us than you! Because he hates you! Now you have to live with Nigel Uno and his idiot parents, and we bet they probably don't really want you either; they just took you in because they had too! What do you say to tha- AAAAHHHH!" The Delightfuls suddenly screamed as they realized just what they were standing in front of… and they barely managed to avoid a blast of blue flames so hot that it blew a hole clean out of the entire school!

…_**Sasha's rage and sorrow had consumed her…**_

…_**She had become a massive Black and Blue Dragon…**_

**Okay… sorry about how long this chapter took to get up; I've been having a bit of writers block lately ^^; sorry about that. Well anyway, I hope you all enjoyed this new chapter and I hope that you will all please Read and Review!**


	11. The Power of the GODSEND

**I am SOOOO sorry that this Chapter took so oddly long to get up, but college started for me so I had to adjust to my new work flow ^^; Not to worry, things are ironing themselves out nicely and the next chapter shall definitely come much quicker… wow hard to believe that we're almost at the end of this little tale.**

**Chapter 11**

**The Power of the GODSEND**

_Sasha's dragon form was huge…_

Although she wasn't quite as big as Fathers dragon form was, there were still plenty of similarities; such as the head, neck, and pretty much the entire body structure in general… she towered over the members of Sector V and the Delightful Children. Her dragon form was as black as her silhouette, perhaps even darker… due to the darkness of her rage also playing a large part in this horrific transformation… her clawed hands only had three lethal talons while her feet only had two claws, exactly like Fathers dragon state, although her tail had a distinctly nasty blade at its end, more so than a dragons normal spiked tail… this could definitely do a lot of damage should Sasha decide to use it as a weapon. However unlike Fathers dragon form, it was clear that Sasha's dragon state was only capable of walking and running on all fours rather than on two, and the most noticeable trait of difference was Sasha's wings… Unlike Fathers dragon wings, which were too small to actually fly with and were red and bat like; Sasha's wings were huge, almost double the length of her body and they were angelic, lined with large fiery feathers that were a deep midnight blue in color… but more so than anything one thing was very clear about Sasha right now…

_He glowing amber eyes were filled with unfathomable rage…_

Not surprisingly the Delightful Children began to book it as fast as they possibly could towards the nearest exit… screaming like little babies the whole way… But the much more unfortunate members of Sector V found themselves cornered by Sasha's raging dragon form… as the only way out of this area was being blocked by Sasha's new form.

"Now Sasha don't- don't make us have to hurt you!" Numbuh 1 stuttered as best he could, as he was clearly very afraid of the goliath size dragon before him. Which unsurprisingly began to growl dangerously at the cornered members of KND.

…_But surprisingly she did not attack them…_

Something also very unlike Fathers dragon form, Sasha could still retain most of her focus and reasoning… even in spite of her blinding rage. While she was no doubt angry at her friends; it was the Delightful Children who had triggered the final form of her wrath. Merely roaring at her cornered friends, she took a mere second to adjust to the workings of her new form… and then she bolted at a break-neck speed in the direction that the Delightfuls had just run down mere moments before… and in under a minute Sasha literally blew the front doors right off the school and leapt out into the schools courtyard. Where an unexpected and yet extremely dangerous sight greeted her.

…_Namely the Really Really Incredibly Destructive Machine…_

"It is over for you!" The Delightful's screamed from within the safety of their insanely dangerous contraption. It was clear that they had finally snapped… "This time you're going to be leaving us alone forever! Because we're going to remove you from this world!"

"_**Just say it normally!"**_ The Dragon Sasha roared. _**"You're going to try and kill me!"**_

"We're not going to _'TRY'_ we **ARE** going to kill you!"

"_**Funny I was about to say the same thing about you idiots!" **_Sasha snapped before flaring her wings out and she bared her teeth and claws; she was now fully intent on finally being rid of those five little creeps once and for all!

…_And thus the battle began…_

Sasha reared up and charged full force at the Really Really Incredibly Destructive Machine; all around her body a veil of blue flames suddenly appeared, possibly to amplify the amount of damage she was going to delve out upon the five little brats who had been making her life a misery since she had first met them. With a single fluid motion, the dragon spread her wings and leapt upon the main hub of the Destructive Machine. Her red hot talons piercing deep into the metal carapace; but this didn't dissuade the Delightful Children who began to smile wickedly as they seized their machines main controls and powered up the Incredibly Destructive Machines flaming chainsaw extensions and began swiping them at Sasha. While the flaming part was no doubt completely ineffective, the chainsaws themselves would still be more than capable of inflicting massive damage nonetheless. But Sasha's rage and newfound form made her a lot quicker than the Delightful Children had anticipated; and she managed to avoid the chainsaws and made her way to the glass dome on top of that wretched machine that housed the little brats.

Wasting no time the large black and blue dragon reared up and began to slam down over and over again on the glass; but the glass designed for this war machine was extremely tough and it wasn't until the fourth time she reared up and slammed down with all of her might that the glass began cracked with hundreds of spider-web like cracks. At this Sasha grinned smugly… she was halfway to her victims and once she had them she would show them no mercy. But Sasha began plotting her revenge a little to early, she didn't take to heed the Destructive Machines other robotic tentacles and she was quickly knocked off by two of these slamming hard into her side and sending her flying into the side of the school. But Sasha while winded was getting ready to rush again at that dreaded machine…

_But she didn't get the chance as one of those Chainsaw appendages managed to rip through Sasha's side._

If Sasha hadn't managed to partly see the attack coming and tried to dodge it she would have been run through by that chainsaw. She was lucky, but the wound was messy… the chainsaw had shredded through her skin like it was tissue paper, but luckily it had not hit anything vital. But her blood began to seep out of her wound like a crimson river. But even in spite of this grievous wound, Sasha still managed to regain herself… but a sudden clattering sound distracted her just for a second…

…_but her heart nearly stopped when she saw what it was…_

…_The GODSEND music box had just rolled its way across the pavement…_

Even in spite of her transformation, technically Sasha still had the backpack from the other day on her back. If her body wasn't silhouetted the backpack would still be on her back, even in her dragon form. When the flaming chainsaw had struck her, it had damaged her backpack enabling Sasha's precious music box to fall out onto the ground… but thank God in heaven it didn't break again.

Forgetting all about her adversaries, Sasha bolted for her most beloved possession and as quick as she could she grabbed it up very carefully in her jaws, letting it rest on her tongue. Unfortunately this action left her wide open to an attack and quicker than the large dragon could react she found herself wrapped up in the rest of the Incredibly Destructive Machine's tentacles. One particular tentacle snaked its way around her neck and began choking her… causing her to open her mouth involuntarily. This sudden development sent the Delightfuls cackling with cruel glee and they opened the glass dome of their death machine in order to face the hate-fueled dragon. And the smallest boy quickly grabbed the GODSEND out of Sasha's open mouth.

"Well now… what do we have here?" The Delightfuls' sneered holding their prize. They knew very well that this particular device meant more to Sasha than anything else in the whole world. And as long as they had it, they had the upper hand… and they loved it when that happened. "How about we… just smash it to pieces?" they threatened evilly.

**…**_**an aura of pitch black flames erupted around Sasha with the ferocity of a plague…**_

And something that the Delightful Children didn't expect occurred… even though the Really Really Incredibly Destructive Machine was an imposing and exceedingly dangerous device… it was not fireproof by any means… Father wasn't stupid, heaven forbid that the Kids Next Door should somehow manage to commandeer it; it would be nearly useless if Father had to go up against it. This fact was now being demonstrated by one very pissed dragon. It was as though her entire body had just exploded into nothing but a mass of black flames. The Incredibly Destructive Machine began to short out due to the sheer magnitude of the fires heat. In a matter of seconds warning alarms began to blare at an earsplittingly loud volume; the Delightful Children barely had enough time to eject from the failing war machine before the whole thing completely exploded!

Sasha now loomed before the Delightfuls filled with a rage so great that the heavens themselves seemed to tremble. She stood before them, her eyes filled with a merciless wrath. This was the end, she had had enough! She began to draw in a long rattling breath… she was going to burn those little brats beyond recognition! But in her anger she failed to notice that the Delightfuls' were still holding onto her music-box… but just as Sasha loosed her hell-fire inferno-

…_The GODSEND began to play…_

Perhaps regaining her senses just long enough to realize her mother's music box was right in her line of fire; Sasha managed to move her head and divert the flames, successfully destroying several nearby cars and lighting some poor soul's house on fire, but she did manage to avoid destroying the GODSEND. Only once Sasha stopped to again glare angrily down at her targets… was the tune that the music box producing capable of being heard… and its newly restored form slowly began to turn slowly, the white glass columns that gently sloped together began to untangle themselves and they seemed to _'bloom'_ like a flower, exposing the red glass flame in the music box's center… but this glass flame seemed to have altered itself; as the glass moved in such a way that it appeared to have become an actual flame! It emitted a subtle, soft haunting light that began to glow with a haunting white light that began to glow brighter and Brighter and _BRIGHTER_!

Sasha brought her massive blue wings up to shield her eyes from the blinding light as it seemed that the light and the music boxes melody were intertwined and the brighter the light became, the louder the music became as well… but at the same time the music began to fill Sasha's ears…

…_And all through her raging, angered mind…_

…_Going against Sasha's will…_

…_Her happy memories began to play…_

Involuntary of course… As Sasha was currently drawing all of her power from her anger! And these flashes of happiness were out of place, she was so angry… these thoughts threatened to destroy her power!

**…She didn't want to be happy right now…**

When the GODSEND's light finally began to fade the glass spires of the music box recoiled, returning to their original '_closed'_ stated; its tune slowly began to stop… only once the last note chimed was what exactly had happened visible.

_The Delightful Children were finally gone for good…_

_Only Sector Z remained…_

While obviously both shocked and confused about this, they didn't have any time to ponder what had just happened as they barely managed to scatter in order to avoid a large blue fireball that nearly incinerated them! But Sasha was no longer deliberately trying to kill them… no… she had reared back onto her hind legs and was roaring something vicious into the sky; occasionally shooting off a few blasts of her flames. She was clawing at her head, trying to silence the happy memories that threatened to end her rage… Not that it seemed to be working; Sasha's mighty dragon form began to start shrinking, and she began turning back to her normal human state. Both in body and in mind…

_What had she done?..._

Sasha wasn't completely human yet, she still had her wings and she didn't want to face her former friends… as there was no way that they were going to forgive her for this… and she didn't want to hear more insults from those other brats, or whatever or whoever they had become. No… her very mental state was beginning to collapse around her. The realization of everything that had just happened, the horror that she had been intent on _**killing**_ somebody, even those bratty kids…

_She really was a monster…_

_That scared her far more than anything else..._

_She had to get out of here…_

Even in her current state, weakened in both body and mind, Sasha found that she was able to draw on more of her power… not from hate but from fear… she managed to stabilize her dragon form, although it was considerably smaller than it was before; and as fast as she could she grabbed up the GODSEND and spread her wings and disappeared into the darkening sky. Just as a crack of lightning split through the air like a knife.

This whole thing had transpired relatively quickly, in just under an hour actually. So one can only imagine the surprise of Sector V when they finally managed to get outside only to find out that the fight was already over. But it was suddenly very clear that they had a very good reason for taking so long…

…_During her little tumble down the stairs, Kuki had broken her arm…_

And she was crying her eyes out, clearly in severe pain. Numbuh's 4 and 5 were currently trying to console the hurt girl,** (Numbuh 5 succeeding far more than Numbuh 4 but still he was making an effort nonetheless…)** But once Nigel got a look at the ruined Really Really Incredibly Destructive Machine and the still dazed members of Sector Z… he was stunned silent!

"Who the heck are these guys? And where is that cruddy dragon girl and the Delightful brats?" Wally growled lethally, he wanted to personally give Sasha a bit of hell for what had happened to Numbuh 3. But Nigel's eyes narrowed and his attention returned to his team.

"Never mind that right now Numbuh 4, you and Numbuh 5 take Numbuh 3 to the hospital!" Nigel instructed. He didn't need to tell Abby twice; she grabbed Numbuh 4 by the back of his sweatshirt and led Kuki towards the hospital, dragging Wally most of the way. Then Numbuh 1 turned his attention back to the revived members of Sector Z. "And… how are you guys back?"

"You tell us… this has been happening on and off for a while now." Lenny said flatly. The whole team of Sector Z seemed equally confused as to just how they had managed to become themselves again.

"What do you mean by that?" Hoagie questioned. Naturally after the whole '_Grandfather'_ incident Numbuh 1 had filled the rest of his team in on the fact that the Delightful Children were once the lost members of Sector Z, but Nigel had said that there was no way to actually permanently revert them to their former selves. So naturally hearing that they had been returning to themselves every so often was rather shocking news.

"Exactly what it sounds like." Ashley said crossing her arms and looking at her teammates as well as Nigel and Hoagie. "And I know it sounds strange… but I think that _this_ change has permanently changed us back."

"But that's not possible." Oogie commented.

"I know how it sounds… but I've just got this feeling." Ashley muttered darkly. "And I know that it has something to do with that music box of Sasha's, that's how this whole thing started."

"I agree with Ashley." David acknowledged. "Not to mention I can't help but think that I've heard that things name before… Godsend-"

"Wait… did you say Godsend?" Nigel questioned urgently and David nodded.

"Why? Does it sound familiar to you?" David inquired.

"It sounds _**very**_ familiar." Nigel said and suddenly turned his attention towards Hoagie. "Numbuh 2, do you have your L.U.N.C.H.B.O.C.K.S with you?"

"It's back in my locker… give me a sec-" he said and quickly ran back into the school and moments later returned with the portable computer that was the L.U.N.C.H.B.O.C.K.S. "Ok what am I looking for?"

"The GODSEND." Nigel said as he and the members of Sector Z looked over Numbuh 2's shoulders as he typed in what they were currently searching for.

…_The result however shocked them all…_

There was a file for GODSEND alright; accept for the fact that it had the big word '_Unconfirmed'_ attached to it. Apparently this device was thought to be made up, due to its supposed powers…

**Kids Next Door: GODSEND**

_Godlike_

_Override_

_Decommissioning_

_Sings_

_Enchanting_

_Nightingale_

_Dreams _

'_This device has only been mentioned several times throughout all of Kids Next Door history. Supposedly this item has the power to re-awaken all dormant memories of any decommissioned KND operative, or of anyone in general. According to sketchy reports at best, the device's music sounds different to anyone who hears it, but it takes both the devices music and its unusual physical structure in order to work to its full potential. However, unlike other supposed recommissioning devices; once the dormant memories have been re-awakened they can NEVER be forgotten again. It has also been reported that if someone has been exposed to the GODSEND early in life they have much higher functioning brains throughout life; such as increased intelligence, resistance to most Adult diseases such as Dementia and Alzheimer's, and in some odd cases a massive increase in both lifespan and youth in general. However there are some supposed problems with this so called 'Miracle Device' as well. Re-awakened memories can be both good and bad depending on the past experiences of the individual… although according to some sources the GODSEND only brings happy memories to the surface, but it is the way that they are viewed once awakened that actually makes them good or bad… and by far the most controversial effect of all, is the prospect of this device falling into Adult hands… but this is all speculation as this device's existence and powers have never actually been confirmed by Kids Next Door historians, most speculate that it was just made up by some day-dreaming operatives who were nearing their thirteenth birthdays and ultimately decommissioning.'_

A stunned silence fell over the entire group that had just read this nearly unbelievable turn of events… and after a few long minutes of total silence, Numbuh 2 was the one to actually break the silence by saying exactly what everyone else was thinking.

"Whoa…"

"Yeah… whoa…" Bruce agreed, as the rest of his team was stunned silent. But it was David who regained himself quick enough in order to deduce a few very important things.

"That's how come the Delightfulization wore off; that thing has some amazing power! But how come Sasha took off so quickly afterwards?" immediately after David said this Numbuh 1 groaned loudly and rubbed his forehead as he was starting to feel a bad headache coming on.

"Oh crud I almost forgot about Sasha…" But then a look of pure horror spread across his face as something else suddenly clicked inside of his mind. "OH CRUD! HOW AM I GOING TO TELL MY PARENTS THAT SASHA'S GONE?" No sooner did these words leave Nigel's mouth did another bolt of lightning split through the sky and the rain of a storm that had long been lingering in the area finally begin to downpour.

…_this was not going to end well at all…_

**(…It was well past midnight when Father got a phone call…)**

And as one can imagine this made him _very_ cranky… for some odd reason or another his Delightful Children didn't come home from school that day. He had waited for them for hours and they still didn't come back… this had only added to his already foul mood. Although after a while he figured that they must have hatched some sort of scheme to use against those annoying Kids Next Door and were busy with that and thus they didn't come back. They'd done that a few times before in the past so he wasn't too concerned; and after another few hours of waiting he gave up, popped a few sleeping pills and went to bed early… he'd pretty much been in a borderline coma until now. Disdainfully he reached over to his nightstand where a phone was and picked it up…

"Hello…?" He grumbled sleepily into the phone… **"Whoever this is, you better have one hell of a good reason for calling me at this hour!"**

"Ben?" The unmistakable voice of his brother spoke on the other end. And Father noticed there was an odd amount of urgency in his voice when he spoke. "Ben, this is very important; is Sasha with you?"

"…why would she be here Monty? Last time I checked you are now her legal guardian, not me…" Father growled as he sat upright in his bed.

"She's missing that's why!" Monty yelled angrily into the phone. "She disappeared shortly after school was over and we can't find her anywhere!" An uncomfortable ice cold feeling began to settle in Fathers chest as soon as Monty said this.

"How do you lose a kid in a wheelchair?" Father demanded angrily.

"That's just it; Sasha's not in her wheelchair anymore! According to Nigel she got the feeling back in her legs and then took off to God only knows where! We've been looking for her all day and we can't find her anywhere! I thought that maybe she might have gone back to your house… that's why I'm calling you." Monty continued; his voice sounded exhausted… he was clearly very worried about what had happened to Sasha.

"Why would she come back here Monty? As of right now she hates me; so why would do you think that she would come back?"

"Because… because she's a child Ben. A scared, lonely, heartbroken child… and when children get scared, on instinct they will go to where they feel safe. I don't know Sasha very well, but I thought that she might have gone back to your home. Apparently I was wrong. But… if you do hear from her please call me."

"Fine…" That was all Father said before he slammed the phone back down. A sudden wave of fear began to wash over him like never before. What if something happened to Sasha? He was already dealing with his regrets as it was… if something actually happened to his daughter he would never forgive himself…

'_Because she's a child Ben. A scared, lonely, heartbroken child'_

Monty's words resounded through Fathers skull. And the words ate at him… Monty was right, in so many ways he was right… Father realized that this mess was all his fault. He couldn't blame anyone but himself for the way that this had turned out…

'_When children get scared, on instinct they will go to where they feel safe.' _

"But what happens when a child has no place left that is safe?" Father questioned out loud to himself as he looked out a nearby window at the storm that was still going strong since earlier that afternoon; another great clap of lightning resounded throughout the sky so loudly that the whole house seemed to shake from its force. "Her family is gone and she's alone… she has no home of her own… where would she go?"

"_Home is where the heart is Benny."_ Mariah's words resounded through Fathers memory just as loud as the lightning outside. He remembered that night… they had been sitting together in his living room, the power had gone out and they had turned the couch around in order to look out a window at a lightning storm… he used to cherish moments like that.

"_Then my heart is… with you Mariah."_ A teenage Benedict had said shyly to his beautiful girlfriend. Who had smiled at him with a smile more beautiful than heaven itself.

"_And mine is with you… never forget that I love you Benny."_

**"…my heart is gone…" **Father muttered as his emotions began to drain out from his body leaving him feeling cold, empty and sad… but even now he found himself unable to shed any tears… he had figured that they had long dried out. **"Mariah always had my heart… even when I forgot I had one. Now she's gone… she's dead and in her grave; and she took my heart to the grave with her!"** But no sooner did these words leave Fathers mouth did a thought suddenly click inside of his head. And as quick as he possibly could he raced out of his room and out the front door of his mansion, paying no heed to the raging storm around him…

…_he knew where Sasha was…_

**Well I'm gonna have to leave it here for now; rest assured the next chapter will be up much quicker than this one was. Alright as always please Read and Review! Especially since we are so close to the end here!**


	12. Grave

**Chapter 12**

**Grave  
><strong>

…_Father hated graveyards…_

And by hate, he really meant feared… he feared the fact that that someday he would be confined in a small box and either be buried six feet under the ground or locked in a mausoleum somewhere… it made his insides churn. And right now, in the very dead of night, in the cold unrelenting rain, with the only light coming from his struggling flames and the occasional lightning bolt; this cemetery looked like something right out of one of Fathers worst nightmares.

Ceasing the flames that he had burning around his body and quickly creating a ball of fire in his hand, Father began to try and navigate through this particularly large graveyard. However with the rain pelting down at its current ferocity it made this much harder than usual, but he still managed to keep enough of a flame going so that he could avoid bumping into some of the headstones. In all honesty he wasn't completely sure where he was; he only knew the general direction of where he wanted to be… the weather just wasn't helping. After walking around for what felt like an hour he finally found what he was looking for…

…_The Harth family Mausoleum… _

This was where Mariah's mother and her grandparents and their parents were laid to rest, and it would be where old man Ezekiel's body would be placed in a few days' time, after his funeral was held. It was a large beautiful construct that looked like it was made of silver and black marble, and there were a pair of roaring stone lions set just outside of its massive doors. But this wasn't exactly what Father was looking for; but what he was searching for should have been right around this nearby area…

"Where was it? I knew that it wasn't far from this tomb…" Father muttered angrily to himself as he tried to look around the surrounding area in the pitch black darkness with virtually no success. But just then a bolt of lightning exploded across the sky with a mighty _BOOM_! Illuminating the surrounding area for a few moments… just long enough for Father to see where he truly needed to go.

Quite a ways away from the Harth tomb stood a tall, ancient Weeping Willow tree. And beneath this tree was a single, solitary headstone with a beautiful stone angel standing tall above it… Once so many years ago Mariah had mentioned that she didn't want to end up in her families vault, but would rather be buried beneath that Willow tree. It sounded so much more peaceful to her… and sure enough, another bolt of lightning flashed, enough for Father to let out a small sigh of relief. His instinct had been right…

…_there was Sasha…_

Something Monty had said over the phone had rung very true to Father; when children become scared or alone, they tend to go to a place that they would feel safe. But in Sasha's case she no longer had anyplace that she could feel safe… so she would go to the only place she could think of to find even the slightest relief from her pain.

…_her Mother's Grave… _

Father walked very slowly towards the young girl; and another bolt of lightning revealed that she was completely covered in her black and blue silhouette, she had her face in her hands and she was slowly rocking back and forth… sobbing quietly. Or at least that was what Father thought until he got a bit closer…

"_May angels lead you in… Hear you me my friends… On sleepless roads the sleepless go … May angels lead you in…"_ He heard Sasha's voice singing so low that it was barely louder than a whisper. His heart made a painful '_twang'_ in his chest… he knew that song. And Sasha didn't even notice his approach until he slowly sat down next to her. Only then did she stop singing, letting an uncomfortable silence fall between the two of them… currently the Weeping Willow offered some shelter from the storm, not that it really mattered at this point; Father was drenched and Sasha was in far worse shape than he was… but he said nothing for quite a few minutes. He removed his pipe that had long been extinguished by the rain and placed it in his pocket. For once in his life he couldn't think of something to say; as everything in her life had gone straight to hell… and he couldn't think of anything to say to Sasha without sounding like an insensitive idiot; but after a few more minutes his presence caused Sasha's golden eyes to appear from within the darkness of her silhouette, although they were practically orange from the sheer amount of tears that she had been crying.

"_Why are you here?"_ She asked lowly, her voice seeming to crack slightly from the strain of the tears she had been crying.

"Looking for you."He replied simply.

"_You found me now leave me alone…"_ Sasha hissed, a partial sob managing to escape her as she spoke. Father was silent again, before he sighed and rubbed his forehead as a dark realization began to hit him.

"You're treading a dark path here kid… if you keep at this your life will be filled with nothing but misery." Father warned as the wind from the storm suddenly seemed to pick up, blowing the rain right into the two of them… but Sasha seemed to pay no attention as she suddenly started laughing in a cruel and borderline insane way.

"_My life already __**IS**__ filled with misery! I've lost everyone I care about! Not to mention that I am a FREAK! I-I-I-"_ Sasha suddenly broke down and suddenly started crying full force for a few seconds before she managed to get a grip on herself… then she whispered something in a voice so low that was barely audible. _"I want to die…"_

At this Father wasted no time in smacking the young girl, hard, in her face. **"Don't say that! Don't ever say that!"** he snapped in a small fit of anger… well, small compared to his usual fits of anger that is. But either way he definitely stunned Sasha at this… she didn't respond to this, just looked up at him with a look of surprise visible in her large golden eyes. In a second he calmed down, and continued… "Don't say such a thing… your life isn't bad enough to warrant it."

"_How would you know?"_ Sasha demanded angrily.

"Because **I** once took a razorblade to my wrist… your life isn't as bad as you think it is." He said without a hint of emotion in his voice. At this Sasha just stared at him in complete and utter shock.

"_You tried-"_

"Once… back when I was only a few years older than you. My life was filled with pain and sorrow, so one day I just broke down... the way I had it figured no one would miss me; I nearly succeeded too…" he paused, then cast Sasha a glance that was filled with an emotion that was near alien to his features… _caring_… "I would have succeeded if it wasn't for your mother… of course she beat the living hell out of me afterwards for trying such a stupid thing."

Sasha became dead silent, turning her attention away from Father and looking out at the graveyard before her… and for a good long time there was silence between Father and Sasha, only he knew that he would have to be the one to do the talking right now. He had to tell her… he had to warn her.

"Your life may seem bad now, but you still have people who care about you… your Uncle Monty; he's a good guy if not a bit thick. Your Aunt is alright too, I guess… even your cousin Nigel probably cares about what happens to you… but if you keep focusing on your troubles, and your sorrows… if you keep driving everyone away and trying to blame others for not understanding the pain you're in… or worse, if you start blaming others for causing you pain… you'll end up in a bad place that you'll never be able to escape from. And what you do care for the most; will be lost to you… forever…"

"_Is… is that what happened to you?"_ Sasha questioned.

"…yes…" He answered tonelessly… the silence resumed for a minute or so; before Sasha couldn't help but ask something that troubled her since she had found out he was her blood father.

"_Did you ever love my Mother? And if you did… why did you let her leave?" _She asked… part of her fearing the answer. But… deep in her heart of hearts… she needed to know…

"Did I love your Mother?" Father echoed the question. "I loved your Mother more than life itself! She was… my best and only friend." These words hurt as Father spoke them; they hurt so much worse than he could have ever imagined. "And she left… because I drove her away. I was so selfish. I thought of no one except myself… I never… I never went after her because I was ashamed too. Your Mother was a good woman; too good… she thought of everyone **except** herself. And now… and now she's gone and I can never tell how sorry I am… but I am sorry… _So sorry_… but, not just to Mariah. I'm sorry Sasha… for everything I said; I really am."

Sasha looked at him; her eyes shining bright with tears. And even though she seemed completely unaware of it, her silhouette was slowly disappearing. About half of it was gone when it suddenly seemed to pause in its disappearance; Sasha shook her head and looked away. Like she was trying to reason to herself that he was lying… or trying to deceive her in some way.

"_You didn't want me then… and you don't want me now."_ She said darkly. Her voice cracking again, it was as though something in her heart was looking for some reason to not believe him, to not trust him… But at this point Fathers heart was raw and bleeding… he had nothing left to hide; he was being honest now… with both Sasha… and himself.

"I didn't want kids, but… Mari- your Mother, always said that if I ever had a child of my own it would change my mind. She was right…" Father said sadly looking up at the sky through the long, draping branches of the Willow tree. "I see your mother in you Sasha, and if that wasn't scary enough… I see myself in you too! I see the same sad, lonely child that I was in you and it frightens the hell outta me! And I wouldn't wish the past I had on anyone… not even Nigel… You; you're a good kid. You have your mothers' heart, and my brilliant brain." He added, trying to make a quick joke for the poor girl…

**…**_**The ghost of a smile appeared on Sasha's features… but it disappeared as quickly as a lightning's flash…**_

"_You… really want me?"_ Sasha whispered; her voice unable to hide her hope. _"To stay with you?"_

"I do… I… know that I have absolutely no clue how to be a _'real'_ father but-" he never had a chance to finish what he was saying as Sasha suddenly launched into his chest and she just broke down crying once again. Father didn't know how to react to this, he just wrapped his arms tightly around his distraught daughter and held her close just letting her cry.

…_drip…_

…_drip…_

When did he start crying? Father couldn't remember the last time he cried. But all of a sudden it was like someone had opened the floodgate to his soul and he; The Nemesis to the KND, The Lord of the Delightful Mansion, perhaps the meanest man on the face of the planet, broke down crying as well… his black soul ravaged with long suppressed emotions. His tears came silently, cascading down his face like a pair of twin waterfalls. But when he went to wipe the tears from his eyes, something shocked him-

**…**_**his silhouette was gone… **_

For the first time in God only knows how long, the very symbol of all his rage, anger, and hatred had left his body. With the release of his unhappiness in the form of tears… his silhouette had lost its grip and it was now being washed away by both the rainstorm and the waves of emotion that were coming from his own bleeding heart.

…_but his heart wasn't literally bleeding…_

…_so where was all the blood coming from?_

He could see it on his hands now that he had returned to his human form, his arms and hands were soaked in blood. That was when he realized that Sasha; who had also lost her silhouette, was bleeding a crimson river out of a disgustingly nasty wound that was ripped into her side. The sight of this made Benedict's heart nearly stop in paralyzing fear.

"I need to get you to a hospital." He said to Sasha as he stood, still holding his grievously injured child close. Although her grip on him had lessened; her own weakness from blood loss finally setting in… but she wasn't entirely unconscious yet… and before Benedict could so much as move a step away from where he was…

"…_I love you…"_ Sasha whispered weakly.

Those three little words… struck Benedict far deeper than anything else ever could. It rattled around his brain for a few moments before finally reaching his ice cold heart… and thawing it. Another wave of tears poured from his eyes and a tiny, small, genuinely happy smile appeared on his face as he pulled his daughter closer to him in a gentle hug.

"I love you too." He said back to Sasha. But then he noticed Sasha's tattered backpack still leaning against the gravestone and he picked it up, careful to not disturb the young girl in any way, as she had finally passed out into a state of unconsciousness... but at the same time, he also got his first real good look at the tombstone before him and he read the inscription written on it…

_**Here lies Mariah Harth**_

_**Beloved Teacher, Mother, and Daughter**_

_**Olympus specto vos, may lumen usquequaque rector vos domus  
><strong>_

Benedict stared at the inscription, and then his eyes traveled up to the beautiful angel that stood tall atop of the stone. For the life of him he couldn't explain it… but the words that came to his tongue he couldn't stop himself from saying…

"_And if you were with me tonight… I'd sing to you just one more time… A song for a heart so big… God couldn't let it live…"_ Benedict finished the song that Sasha was singing earlier. He didn't have much of a singing voice, at least not in his own opinion. But that song… right now… it only seemed right. And deep within his heart of hearts… he hoped that Mariah knew he was saying goodbye… and that he loved her… That done he turned and began hurrying off as fast as he could towards the local hospital…

_The raging storm finally beginning to clear…  
><em>

_**Ok, yes I know it took forever to get this chapter up; I'm sorry… but my college work has been astronomical as of late^^; So yeah everything is coming to an end soon. There is probably only one more chapter left to go. I'd really like some feedback on this chapter in particular as I've never really written anything as emotional as this chapter before. I'd really like to know how I did on this… I really will try to have the next chapter up quicker… so please hang in there with me… And as always, please Read and Review!**_

_**Also before I forget, the song that Sasha was singing is called 'Hear You Me' by Jimmy Eat World, and the phrase written on Mariah's grave was Latin and it reads: 'Heaven awaits you, may the light always guide you home.' **_


	13. Peace

_**Chapter 13**_

_**Peace**_

_Monty Uno was the only one at home when the phone rang…_

It was well past noon the next day and poor Monty and his family had been up literally all night looking for Sasha. In fact they had all just regrouped only a little less than an hour ago... As Monty had insisted that his wife and Nigel get at least a little bit of rest before they tried anything else. Naturally Monty was completely exhausted as well, but someone had to stay awake in case anyone tried to call… whether it was the police or Sasha herself. He sat at the kitchen table with a mug of fresh coffee in his hand… although admittedly even with the coffee he was starting to nod off when the ringing phone startled him back to being fully awake.

"Hello?" Monty said as he quickly stood up and grabbed up the phone from off the nearby countertop.

"…_Monty, it's Benedict."_

"Ben? What's the matter? Did you find her?"

"_Yes I have Sasha; we're at the hospital-"_

"The hospital? Oh dear God what happened?" Monty exclaimed completely horrified at the thought of his poor niece possibly being injured or sick enough to have warranted her needing to go to the hospital. If Benedict had to take her there it was definitely not something minor, or a joke.

"_She's pretty torn up and lost a lot of blood… but the doctor told me that she should be alright; however they're going to keep her overnight for observation just to be safe."_ Benedict explained in an oddly calm tone as Monty Uno grabbed his coat and was preparing to head over to the hospital right then and there.

"Thank you Ben, I'm on my way."

"…_I'm keeping her Monty…"_

This stopped Monty Uno dead in his tracks; did he just mishear his little brother? "What did you just say?" he asked in complete disbelief.

"_She's my daughter Monty, I changed my mind… I want to keep her."_ Benedict stated again in that same surprisingly calm manner.

"You can't have it both ways Ben… you can't just be a parent when the mood hits you, it is a full time responsibility." Monty warned, although he was without a doubt extremely happy that his brother wanted to take his daughter… the last thing he wanted was for Benedict to change his mind _again_… as it just would not be fair to Sasha if she had to endure that again…

"_Don't lecture me Monty… I already know that and I've made up my mind."_ Benedict said with a bit more of his usual agitation present in his voice… although it was restrained by Benedict's borderline non-existent self-control… which made it all the more surprising for Monty to hear.

"You're really serious then?" He asked.

"_I am…"_

"If that's the case… then I wish you all the best. You ought to know that I never signed the Guardianship papers. I asked Harths' lawyer to give it a week… just to see if you'd change your mind." Monty said breathing a long sigh of relief that things had turned out the way they had.

"…_did… did you really expect me to change my mind?"_ Benedict questioned suspiciously. As he was more than a little surprised at this newly revealed information.

"I honestly didn't know." Monty said with a slight chuckle. "But, I couldn't help but think that if you did change your mind and it was too late… you'd never have another chance..."

"_A chance for what?"_ Benedict inquired.

"For you to find your peace…" At that silence was all Monty heard; he even began to wonder if his brother had hung up on him! But the sound of Benedict sighing in what he assumed was a bit of annoyance assured him that he was still there.

"_Well I'm going to go then… I'll call you later."_

"Hey Ben…

"_What?"_

"Good luck... little brother." There was a bit of a pause at this, but then there was the sound of a dial-tone… naturally Monty Uno had not expected his brother to respond to his words, but the fact that he had paused for a moment to take his words in brought a smile to Monty's face… perhaps there was hope for his brother yet…

"Just give him a little time Mariah; he'll figure it all out eventually." Monty said to the air; after all Mariah had been his friend too… and he had no doubt in his mind that she was watching all these events from up in heaven… "But if you can… I do recommend the occasional nudge in the right direction." And at this Monty took off his coat and determined that he too was in need of a bit of well-earned rest.

…**Two Months Later…**

Sasha hadn't returned to Gallagher Elementary since her initial disappearance, and even though his father had told him not to worry about Sasha… as she was fine where she was… he didn't tell Nigel where his cousin was; **(As Monty was aware that Nigel didn't much care for his uncle Benedict… and he didn't want Nigel to go over to Bens house and bother him and Sasha until they had finished adapting to their new situation.)** After two more weeks of searching to no avail, Numbuh 1 reluctantly decided to listen to his father and stopped looking for his missing cousin… so two long months had passed since Sector V had seen neither hide nor hair of Sasha.

_That was until today anyway…_

It was Friday and the school day had just ended about ten minutes ago and there was the usual stampede to get out of the building. Yet on this particular day the members of Sector V had been among the first ones out and they were now heading back to the Tree-house. The reason they were in such a particular hurry today was because of what was supposed to occur later on that evening… as there was going to be StarShower tonight… throughout the entire night shooting stars were going to adorn the sky in spectacular display that only happened once every 25 years. Thus they were in a huge hurry to get back to the Tree-house, drop off their school gear, and then make their way out to the local park which was supposed to have the best possible views of the shooting stars... It was also to be noted that Kuki's arm was now in a cast; as during the fight with Sasha in earlier weeks she had broken her arm. Although she now seemed as happy as she usually was, but poor Numbuh 4 was left to carry home her books for her… **(And he was grumbling about it under his breath the whole way.)**

"Hurry it up Numbuh 4!" Abigail said to the irritated and weighed down form of her fellow comrade. Naturally this got her an agitated glare from her considerably shorter friend.

"I'd like to see you go faster while carrying all of Numbuh 3's crud!" Wally grunted darkly back at Numbuh 5.

"But you offered to carry my books for me; remember Numbuh 4?" Kuki pointed out innocently. This caused Abby to snicker and Wally to growl in anger… although that anger was mostly directed at himself.

"Yeah well I didn't know you had _sooo_ much stuff!" he grunted again under his breath. Then he shifted his gaze over to the rest of the members of Sector V who had been watching this little exchange in silent amusement. "Any of you guys want to give me a hand here?"

…_his friends applauded…_

"Ha ha very funny you guys." Numbuh 4 retorted angrily; definitely not amused by that little dose of ironic karma. "But seriously… can one of you guys help me out with this?"

"Why don't you ask Sasha to help you?" Numbuh 3 suggested. Naturally earned her several strange looks from her fellow operatives.

"Was that sarcasm?" Wally questioned flatly.

"No." Kuki answered truthfully. "I mean ask Sasha… she's right over there!" She said gesturing with her good arm a little ways further down the street they were currently walking down.

…_It took a few moments for this to truly register inside of the minds of the rest of the Sector V members…_

…_But once it did, Sasha quickly found herself surrounded…_

Sasha wasn't exactly paying attention to the world around her as she had been taking a walk around town by herself... her mind had been elsewhere when all of a sudden she found herself being stopped in her tracks by several individuals who were all pretty much yelling at her at once. She blinked a few times in surprise but when she realized what was going on… she then smiled and laughed in an extremely nervous manner upon realizing that she was seeing her former friends again.

"Uh… hehe, hi guys." Sasha said nervously. She had every right to be; after all the last time she saw them she hadn't been in a right state of mind… and that was putting it very mildly.

"Where the heck have you been Sasha!" Nigel snapped angrily at his cousin. "Do you have any idea how worried we've all been?"

"Worried? …why would you worry about me? After I totally lost it and attacked you guys I thought that you guys would hate me." Sasha began…

"Hate you?" Numbuh 5 exclaimed. "Girl you've been to hell itself and back again! So… you lost it there for a bit; it's ok. Friends forgive one another."

"Yeah Sasha we're your friends!" Kuki said giving Sasha a quick one armed hug. Sasha smiled weakly, but her smile couldn't quite hide some discomfort at being hugged. Nigel noticed this and that was when he really looked at his cousin… and noticed just how different she looked. While Sasha still was wearing her normal clothes, it was still extremely weird how different she looked simply by being out of her wheelchair. Her eyes also seemed to be much more alive than they had been, shining an even more vibrant and deep shade of gold. But what caught Nigel's attention the most was that there appeared to be bandages wrapped around one side of Sasha's neck, and after looking a little closer he could make out even more bandages wrapped around Sasha's arm and he was willing to bet that she had even more around her torso.

"You're hurt." Nigel inquired… Sasha just let out a dry chuckle.

"Not really, I just got really torn up after fighting with the brats… I needed 113 stiches in my side and I'm on a lot of medications to make sure that I don't get any infections; and those medicines make me sleep a lot. That's why I haven't been in school for so long… this the first time in a long time that I've been awake for more than 4 hours so I thought I'd go for a walk. It's been… a very long time since I was able to do that." Sasha explained and rubbed the back of her head in a still somewhat nervous manner. "I will be seeing you guys again; on Monday I should be back at school… well, either Monday or Tuesday."

"You know the members of Sector Z have been looking for you just as much as we have... They want to personally thank you for freeing them." Numbuh 1 said quickly as he just remembered that little bit of information. "I guess I'll let them know that you'll be in school next week… but Sasha where have you-"

"Where have you been staying Sasha? I thought you were supposed to be living with Numbuh 1 and his parents?" Numbuh 2 questioned a little bit confused… actually that was a good question, since Nigel was about to ask the exact same thing. Of course then it was Sasha's turn to look confused…

"I'm living with my Dad… but I thought you knew that?"

"_**WHAT?"**_ … that was pretty much everyone's reaction to this… and Numbuh 4 finally dropped all of Kuki's books.

"I thought that Father didn't want you!" Numbuh 4 stated flatly… and this earned him a very dark look from Sasha; in fact her eyes actually began to glow in a somewhat menacing way… but she didn't have enough time to reply before Numbuh 1 started in on her.

"Look Sasha, whether or not he's really your Dad… Father is evi- Wh-Wha?" Nigel never got a chance to finish what he was saying because he suddenly found himself being levitated off the ground… but only by a few inches… just enough to bring him up to Sasha's eye level.

"Listen very closely Cuz…" Sasha said in a very malevolent tone that made her shorter cousin gulp nervously. "My Dad isn't evil to me… and if you bad-mouth him around me, I promise that I'll make your life a living hell!" Sasha snapped with a burst of blue flames suddenly appearing around her body…

**…**_**along with her black and blue silhouette…**_

"Am I clear?" The silhouetted Sasha inquired coldly to the freaked out kids in front of her.

"Crystal clear…" Nigel said surprisingly regaining his composure and answering his demonic cousin in a completely un-intimidated manner. Then Sasha dropped him to the ground in which he quickly stood up and brushed himself off… an awkward silence then fell over the group after that; Sasha took a deep, calming breath and her silhouette quickly dispersed. Hoagie fidgeted a bit before he looked at Sasha with quite a bit of noticeable fear written on his face.

"So… um- does… does this mean… you're our enemy now?" He asked, partially fearing the answer.

"She's not our enemy Numbuh 2." Numbuh 1 answered before Sasha could. He brushed a little more dust off of himself before he looked at Sasha… and smiled at her.

"Father is our enemy… but Sasha is our rival." He announced, as he held out a hand to his cousin… and Sasha smiled back and she also extended a hand to Nigel.

…_and the two cousins shook hands…_

"Don't think that this means I'm gonna go easy on you when I'm helping Dad with his plans." Sasha stated with a cocky smile now very apparent on her face; her nervousness was gone and now replaced by self-confidence and strength. Although she did notice that Wally was busy trying to pick up all of Kuki's books and papers. Sasha moved her hand and suddenly all of the books and papers levitated off of the ground and neatly stacked themselves once again in Numbuh 4's arms.

"Uh… thanks." Wally said looking a little both freaked out and wary at Sasha who smiled good naturedly at him.

"Yeah some new powers woke up when I was in the hospital… I gotta practice them so… yeah." Sasha replied.

"Ooohh! I almost forgot! Sasha! Wanna sign my cast?" Numbuh 3 said merrily offering Sasha a blue marker.

"Sure…" Sasha said taking the marker and she signed her name in neat cursive on the cast. Then she looked up at the sky which was already starting to darken as twilight began to set in. "Well… I gotta get going now; I don't want Dad to worry about me. See you guys at school next week!" Sasha said and waved goodbye to her friends who also waved back at her as they continued. There was silence amongst the members of Sector V until Numbuh 4 spoke up.

"Look I know that the Delightful Dorks are gone now… but if Sasha's working with Father, did our problems just get better or worse-"

"Hey! Sasha didn't sign her last name! This is different!" Numbuh 3 exclaimed, more than a little confused as to why Sasha wrote something different. Curiously Nigel glanced at what was written on Kuki's cast…

**…Sasha Uno…**

"Oh yeah… they just got a whole lot worse." Nigel observed… and yet he found that he was ok with that.

…_because right now there was peace and nothing to do but sit back and watch the stars…_

_**(Elsewhere at the Delightful Mansion)**_

By the time Sasha got back home the sun had already set and the first shooting stars had just begun to streak across the night's sky. Sasha mentally kicked herself for getting so sidetracked and looked up at the large imposing mansion before her. She was supposed to meet her Dad on the roof so they could watch the shooting stars together… well Sasha was in a hurry and since she was still getting used to the entire interior of the mansion; she decided to take a shortcut… Quickly her silhouette veiled her body and she began to try her hand at shape shifting again. Although due to her severe injuries she couldn't try a full-body shape shift without running the risk of re-opening the healing wounds, so she tried something she assumed would be simple enough.

_She created a pair of large angelic wings…_

Sasha would have liked to have tried her hand at levitating her own body up to the roof but her levitation ability was still a bit faulty, so she went with the whole shape shifting idea… Sasha flexed her wings for a minute, then spread them and began to fly up to the mansions roof. At first her little shortcut seemed to be a brilliant idea on Sasha's part… that was until a sudden wave of exhaustion suddenly filled her entire body and she couldn't muster the strength to fly any higher and she began to plummet towards the ground… or so she thought.

It turned out that she was actually floating in midair and then she slowly began to float up towards the roof. This anomaly was suddenly explained when she saw Father on the roof waiting for her. Clearly her floating the rest of the way up to the roof was his doing. By now Benedict Uno's silhouette had returned to covering his entire body as it usually did; only now unbeknownst to every other villain, it may disappear from time to time… when he found himself to be in a good mood. But Sasha was the only one who knew this and she wasn't going to tell a soul.

"I thought you were only going for a walk." Father commented darkly to Sasha as he set her down on the roof. "What took so long?"

"I ran into some of my friends." Sasha answered honestly. "We got talking for a bit and I lost track of the time; sorry." Father sighed at this, as he was still getting used to this whole _'parenting'_ thing and how he couldn't just fly off the handle at every little thing like he would have done with the Delightful Children… In retrospect he had wondered what had happened to them… but when Sasha explained what she had seen happen to them with her music box he'd been more than a little shocked. But in actuality, some part of him was relieved that they were gone… this way he wouldn't have to worry about any future issues between them and Sasha. As for Sasha's music box, she had hidden it away someplace special prior to him having found her in the graveyard… and she wouldn't tell him or anyone else where that place was. He couldn't be angry at her for this… that device held some amazing power, and he couldn't guarantee that he wouldn't be tempted to use it in one of his future schemes…

"It's ok…" he said patting Sasha on the head and then he sat back down on the roof. Sasha immediately sat right next to him and the two began to watch the sky, watching the shooting stars. The view from atop the mansion was absolutely breathtaking. One could see for miles in any direction. After a minute an idea came to Father and he telekinetically opened one of the lower windows of his mansion and made an items on one of tables float out the window and come up into his hand… It appeared to be some sort of spyglass. Like the kind a pirate would own.

"Where'd you get that?" Sasha questioned looking at the item with curiosity.

"Won it off Stickybeard in a card game…" Father said with a smirk… not that anyone could notice due to his silhouette. He extended the spyglass and began to scan the sky with it… although he got a little bit sidetracked when he suddenly remembered something that was supposed to be taking place this evening and he glanced in the general direction of the town park. Where as it turned out another villainous picnic was currently being held that evening, so that all of the Adults could enjoy the StarShower without any annoying kids around. Basically to sum it up all of the villains were forbidding kids from entering the best area possible to watch the shooting stars. Father could even see that at the entrance to the park there was quite a gathering of disappointed children… the annoying members of Sector V among them. Father chuckled dryly; if those brats were there then one could be sure that something was going to be occurring that would spoil his fellow villains' fun…

…_But maybe this time they wouldn't be the ones to cause the biggest stir at this picnic…_

Father continued observing the crowds of villains present at the picnic but eventually his gaze settled on Count Spankulot who was unsurprisingly at this little gathering; but what was surprising was that he was apparently busy signing copies of his book for some of the other villains and chatting happily about its contents with them. **(Father was still having a hard time believing that the Spank-Happy Vampires book was a best-seller; but hey stranger things had been happening as of late.) **Still Father couldn't help but wonder when a certain something he'd arranged for the vampire would arrive…

He got his answer when the Count's attention was drawn away from his fellow villains when he noticed a young woman standing a ways behind them in almost an awkward sort of way. She was actually quite pretty; she had long black hair, large icy blue eyes, a somewhat noticeable pair of fangs protruded from either side of her mouth, and greyish colored skin. She wore a black gothic style dress and onyx colored dress boots. Like she wanted to walk up and say something but was having difficulty finding the courage to do so… but Spankulot had noticed her and even from his position far away from this little scene, Father could make out the look of dawning realization and disbelief on the vampires face. There was a long pause… then they both ran up and embraced each other, tears of joy noticeable in both of their faces.

_What…? _

_Father hated loose ends; and it wasn't like it was hard for a super genius like him to track down the vampires daughter… who as it turned out had been looking for her father as well…_

**…**_**no he wasn't getting soft…**_

He watched for a few minutes more, as he was getting quite a kick out of the surprised and confused looks on the other villains' faces. He didn't know what the Count and his daughter **(Whose name was Luna btw.)** were talking about, but he could tell that the words _'I'm sorry'_ were being used by both of them in excess for the next several minutes… then Luna said something that clearly surprised Spankulot and she then motioned for a young man who'd been standing a ways away from the two vampires to come closer… he was attractive enough, with pale skin, brown eyes and dark brown hair. And he was dressed in heavily gothic style clothing… and he had a pair of small children, a boy and a girl who were clearly twins, and who were each probably only about 6 years old at his side. Both were dressed in dark colors and had their mothers greyish skin, noticeable fangs, and black hair. While the Count was clearly stunned to the point where it looked like he was about to faint; Luna suddenly looked confused and appeared to take a head count of her two children… and then her attention was drawn to what was just behind her husband…

Apparently there was a third child; another little girl with skin a little paler than that of her siblings, brown hair that was streaked with black highlights, and was like the rest of her family dressed in dark clothes… only she was clearly the baby of the family maybe three years old at max… and she was currently having her fangs inspected by Knightbrace and clearly it wasn't exactly by choice…

Father stopped watching and folded up the spyglass when he saw Luna's blue eyes turn red as she began to advance on the ever unfortunate dental hygienist. As it didn't take a genius to know what was about to come next would more than likely involve a lot of pain… and even more blood…

"Oh, WOW!" Sasha's amazed voice suddenly drew Father back to more immediate topics. He looked up at the sky. There must have been at least a hundred shooting stars adorning the night's sky all at once; some even had bands of color to them. Subtle hues of blues, purples, gold's and reds. It was a truly a breathtaking sight.

"It is pretty amazing isn't it?" Father said taking the pipe from his mouth and emptying its ash over the side of the roof. But then he suddenly felt Sasha begin to rest her head against his arm; he looked at his daughter only to notice that she was starting to fall asleep… no surprise there, she still had a lot of medication in her system. Father was surprised she'd managed to stay awake for as long as she had.

"I'm… just gonna close my eyes for a minute." Sasha whispered sleepily.

"You do that… I'll be right here when you wake up." Father said with genuine warmth in his voice… true genuine caring.

"You promise?"

"I promise… goodnight my little Sasha." He said lovingly to his daughter and he gave her a quick kiss on her head. And within mere seconds afterward, Sasha was sound asleep. Smiling contently…

_Naturally this little bit of peace and tranquility would come to an end..._

_In a few weeks Father would resume his scheming…_

_He would continue his war with the Kids Next Door…_

_But not right now…_

_Right now he was at peace…_

_Right now…_

…_he was happy…_

_**/The End/**_

_**Wow… this took a lot longer to finish than I thought it would. But yeah, this is it; the stories finale! I hope that you all enjoyed it! ^_^**_

_**Now, there were some things that I didn't get a chance to elaborate on as much as I wanted to in this story such as Sasha's archery skills and her mysterious Jabberwock-esque stuffed animal; I actually am planning on writing a sequel to this fic, but admittedly I'm not going to start writing it for a while as I have quite a few stories in the works right now and a new one I've suddenly been inspired to write… but if all goes well I might have the first chapter of the sequel up around the beginning of Summer. **_

_**So thank you all for reading! And please don't forget to comment!**_


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